Okay, well I want to come back
to the book of Nehemiah and the fourth chapter, but before I
do that, turn to the second chapter. Now remember the background to
this, that this is some 13 or 14 years after the events of
the end of Ezra and Nehemiah had come back with a commission
from King Artaxerxes, that great Persian emperor, to come back
to Jerusalem to build up the walls. Temple worship was reestablished. The temple had been built and
had been finished by Zerubbabel. And that was going on. But the
walls of Jerusalem were a ruin. They were broken down. There
were piles of stones. The gates were burned with fire.
And Nehemiah heard this and was in great sorrow. And the king,
he prayed to God. And God is the one in whose hands
is the heart of the king. And God moved out to Xerxes.
This great sovereign potentate to give Nehemiah everything he
needed to go back and to start work on building the walls of
Jerusalem. But remember, communications
in those days were not as quick as they are today. You know,
something happens in the far-flung corner of Pakistan and within
minutes sometimes we know about it and are watching pictures
on our televisions. you have to bear in mind that even a distance
of a few miles was effectively several hours distant in terms
of news, and a hundred miles or more was much more than that.
News didn't used to get back to the king quite so quickly
about the difficulties that Nehemiah was facing. And Nehemiah did
face opposition. They started to build. And in
verse 10 of chapter 2, just look there, there's this guy Sanballat
the Horonite and Tobiah the Servant, the Ammonite. When they heard
that the walls were being built up, it grieved them exceedingly
that there was come a man to seek the welfare of the children
of Israel. Wow, that made them mad. They
didn't like that. These were the Samaritans living
around. These were the intermingled Israelites
from the northern ten tribes that had become so intermingled
with their Syrian captors and the corrupt tribes all around
that these were now what we read in the New Testament in the Gospels,
the way the Jews despised the Samaritans because they remembered
back to what these people had done. You know, like you get
in different parts of the world now. I imagine if you go to the
old Yugoslavia, those states that now are the separate states
that were the old Yugoslavia, and you'll find grudges being
held for generations. Well, so it was, grudges were
held, because Sanballat and Tobiah, these were the Samaritans and
the heathen tribes around, and they hated the fact that Jerusalem
was being built, that a man had come here, as it says, to seek
the welfare of the children of Israel. They hated the Jews. They hated Jerusalem. And the
reason is because that symbolized God's salvation of his people. That symbolized God's salvation
of his church. That's why they hated it, and
that's why the world today, especially the religious world, hates it.
They hate the gospel. It's an irrational hatred. It's
the world's hatred of the gospel that we see here. And as all
scripture is written for our learning, it's got things to
teach us about the day in which we live and the way the world
views the building of the true church of God, the building up
of the true spiritual walls of Jerusalem. Remember, Jerusalem
has walls of salvation. Walls of salvation. So, in verse
12, Despite the fact that there was this opposition, here was
a man that had a commission to come. He says, I arose in the
night. This is Nehemiah. I and some few men with me, neither
told I any man what God had put in my heart to do at Jerusalem. This is it. Here's a man with
a burden. Why don't you just go and be
a good wine waiter in Artaxerxes' palace in Shushan in the Persian
Empire? Yes, a good job, that'll do you
quite nicely. He couldn't do it. He was probably
very comfortable, prosperous. He was right there in the heart
of government. But do you know he couldn't do
it? Do you know why he couldn't do it? God had put it in his heart to do
something in Jerusalem. That's what happens with a preacher.
I've heard others say to a young man aspiring to be a preacher,
If you feel you can do anything else, go and do it. But if you're
absolutely overwhelmed and you can't do anything else, you must
do it. It's because God has put it in your heart to do something
at Jerusalem. Jerusalem, Zion, the city of
the living God, the church of the living God, to preach the
gospel of his grace. And that's verse 12. God had put it in his heart to
build. But nevertheless, verse 19, This building of Jerusalem,
which so much pictures the building of the church on the foundation
of the pure gospel, the clear, pure gospel of God's sovereign
grace, his distinguishing grace, his particular redemption. Verse
19, those around hear about it. When Sanballat the Horonite and
Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, And Geshem the Arabian heard
it. Look what they did. They laughed
us to scorn and despised us and said, what is this thing that
ye do? Will ye rebel against the king?
And the answer came from Nehemiah. Then answered I them and said
unto them, the God of heaven, he will prosper us. Therefore
we his servants will arise and build, but you, have no portion,
nor rite, nor memorial in Jerusalem. You that oppose, you that hate,
you that ridicule, you have no place, you have no portion, you
have no part in this. Just as Ezra, in the days of
Ezra, they said when they were offered help, Zerubbabel, they
said, no, you have no part with us. They got scorn and ridicule,
hatred and opposition. And the reason was, What it says
in verse 20, you don't have any part with us in this. You hate
us! because you hate the God of sovereign
grace is what that is saying. The religious world around will
all be friends together so long as we say that everybody's got
a chance and that Christ has died for everybody and so long
as we say all of those things, oh, we can all be Christians
together. But the moment you say God determined before the
beginning of time to save a people because He is sovereign. He is sovereign. It's his choice. It's his world. It's his universe.
He is sovereign. He could have left everybody.
He could have left it that nobody was saved, that everybody under
sin was condemned, that he put everybody on probation and we
all sinned and therefore we're all condemned eternally. He could
have left it like that. But in grace, he sent his son
to be the substitute, the surety, the savior of his people. And
the world hates it, and especially the religious world, that loves
to tell you, if you do this, or you ought to do this, to get
into a better place with God. The true gospel always says,
God has done, Christ has finished. The false gospel says, you must
do, you need to do, you need to think, you need... The difference
between darkness and light. There in verse 20, it sounds
harsh what Nehemiah is saying. You've got no portion with us.
The reason for your hatred of what we're doing is you hate
God. And the reason you hate Him is He is a God of sovereign
grace. And you say that's not fair and
you shake your fist in the face of God. And I won't have it like
that. Like they said of Jesus, we will
not have this man to rule over us. Why? Because we hate the
gospel of sovereign grace that he preaches. They didn't have
the love of God in them. John says this in 1 John chapter
2 and verse 5. But whoso keepeth his word, in
him verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that
we are in him. In him, the one who believes
his word, In him is the love of God perfected. The love of
God towards the sinner and the love of that saved sinner towards
God. You know that you're in him because
you love God. You love him. Jesus said to Peter,
Peter, do you love me? The people of God love God. To
him, to the one who loves him, he is precious. Christ is precious. And that's why they hated, and
that's why they got so much opposition. Because these people didn't have
the love of God in them. They didn't have a love of the
gospel of grace, and of the God of sovereign grace. And they
hated the people who were the recipients of that grace, according
to the Scriptures. Then in chapter 3, we're not
going to stop there in chapter 3, because there's a lot of names,
but it's all about the building. They went ahead, and they built,
and they built up the walls, and they made significant progress.
They didn't complete it, but they made good progress. And
what we have there is a list of real people. They're named. Don't think that these things
are passed over. Often in scriptures we have long
lists of names. It's because God deals with specific
people, and he names them. These people all had a role to
play. It tells us this one built that
bit, and this one built that bit, and others looked after
the defense of the place. And all had a role to play, and
that reminds me straight away of what Paul says about the church
of Christ being a body. And he says, you're not all the
head, and you're not all the eyes, and you're not all the
ears, and the arms, and the hands, and the fingers, and the feet,
and the toes. All have different roles to play, and in chapter
3 there are all these people with different roles to play
in the body of Christ, in the building of the church, which
is symbolized by the building of Jerusalem. All members, all
with a ministry, whatever it is. They also serve who only
watch and wait, I think a poet wrote. Those who just have a
ministry of prayer in their quiet place. Because there's so little
interaction with others. And so little interaction with
the rest of the church of God. But they also serve who only
watch and wait. And who pray. Pray for the good
of Israel. Anyway, come to chapter four.
The start of chapter four. And again we meet Sanballat,
chapter 4, verse 1. But it came to pass that when
Sanballat heard that we builded the wall, he was wrath, he was
mad, he was really angry. And he took great indignation.
And it showed itself in mockery. He mocked the Jews. And he spoke
before his brethren and the army of Samaria. And they said, Look
at them. Look at these feeble, pathetic
Jews. What do they think they're trying
to do? Will they fortify themselves? Will they sacrifice? That's not
to say that temple sacrifices weren't going on, but would they
sacrifice at the completion of this work? Would they complete
this work and would they give God the praise for it? Will they
make an end in a day? You know, do they think they're
going to do it quickly enough to prevent us from stopping them
from doing it? You know, if it spins out for
a long time, they'll easily disrupt the work and they won't be able
to complete it. Will they make an end in a day? Will they complete
it so quickly that we won't be able to stop them? Of course
they won't. Will they revive the stones? Look at the building
materials that they've got. They've got heaps of rubbish
which are burned. That's all they've got. They
haven't got a proper church. They haven't got a proper minister,
they haven't got proper facilities, they haven't got a proper youth
group, they haven't got this, that or the other. They haven't
got any of the things that proper churches have. Well, what do
they think they're going to do on their own? They're pathetic.
Look at them, these feeble Jews, will they fortify them? This
is what the religious world says about the true church today.
You say, oh, you're being a bit harsh, aren't you? You're being
a bit divisive. No, you go and ask, seriously.
you go and ask some questions seriously amongst those who call
themselves the people of God. They despise the true church,
they despise the true gospel of God's sovereignty, they really
do. They despise it. Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by
him. Look what Tobiah says, continuing this mockery. Even that which
they build If a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone
wall. It'll take no more than a little
fox to run over this wall and look at it, look how bad it is.
It'll just fall straight down. It will have no strength. It
will have nothing to make it endure. It'll be a little flash
in the pan and then they'll all be gone. There's so many parallels
with the true church which appears to the world and religious organization
to be so pathetic and feeble and struggling that even a little
fox running over it would cause it to fall down. But what do
they do? They pray. They pray in the face
of this opposition. And don't think for one moment
that we shouldn't expect opposition. You know, it would be a shock if Christ hadn't told us. But
he told us. He said, a man's foes, a believing
man's foes will be, where from? Enemies a long way off overseas.
No, those of his own household. A man's foes will be those of
his own household. Jesus said, gentle Jesus, meek
and mild, said this, Luke 12, 51, I came not to bring peace,
But division, because the gospel of his grace divides. Oh, it's
great to get on. It's good to be in this world
wise as serpents and gentle as doves, to cause no offense, save
the offense of the gospel, but believe you me. Believe you me,
you can be the gentlest, easiest person to get on with in the
world. And work colleagues will find you easy to get on with,
and it's good to be in that position. It really is. In every other
situation, it is good to be as inoffensive as you possibly can
be. But the moment you start speaking about the distinctive
gospel, that Christ has saved a people according to his distinctive
sovereign grace, and not due to anything that we do, you'll
get opposition, you'll get ridiculed, you'll be despised, people will
step back and go, ooh, this is too hard for us, like they said
in John chapter 6, will you, you know, they all went away,
they said this is a hard saying. What was the hard saying? Jesus
saying exactly that. Sovereign grace. This is a hard
saying. Who can bear that? And from that
moment, many walked no longer with him. And Jesus said to the
disciples, will you also go away? To whom can we go? However, if
you all go away and there's two or three of us left, or whoever's
left, we'll still be here. We'll still do it. We'll still
worship God. We'll still stick with it because
that's his purpose. Not peace, but division. But
then, verse 4, look at verse 4. This is Nehemiah again now. So that was Tobiah and Sanballat. Now verse 4 is Nehemiah. He's
praying. The people are praying. Hear,
O our God. We pray to the God of heaven.
We pray to him. We're despised. This situation,
what do they do? Do they hurl insults back? Do
they just pick up their swords and spears and get ready to fight?
No, they pray to our God. Oh, our God, hear us, for we
are despised by these enemies of the truth. And turn their
reproach upon their own head. They've got nothing but hatred
for the people of God. They've got nothing but hatred
for the God of salvation and sovereign grace. Turn it upon
their own head. Give them for a prey in the land
of their captivity. Cover not their iniquity, as
he has done for those that he loved. And let not their sin
be blotted out before thee, as he has done for those he saved. The sins of his people have been
blotted out. Let not their sin be blotted
out, but those that are in Christ, their sins have been blotted
out. You can read it in Jeremiah. Read it in Jeremiah, that they
looked for sins in Judah and in Israel, and they found none.
There was none there. Why? Because Christ has taken
it away. In that salvation, In that lamb slain from the foundation
of the world, in that lamb of God, our Passover lamb who is
sacrificed for us at Calvary, he's taken it away. Taken it
away as far as the east is from the west. They've provoked thee
to anger, verse five, the end of it. This is the prayer. This
is God's purpose. And these insults coming against
the people of God preaching the truth of God, they've provoked
They've provoked thee, God, to anger before the builders. So
we built the wall, and all the wall was joined together. God
answered their prayer. And to the half thereof, for
the people had a mind to work. They prayed, and God had given
them a mind to work. A determination, a purpose, a
commitment, a priority. God had given them a mind to
work. What is it to work in the church
of God? It's to pray for its prosperity.
It's to support it. It's to be there when we gather
together. That's what it is to have a mind for the work. They
had a mind for the work. God had given them a mind for
the work. To throw themselves into it,
to commit to it. They feared attack. Look, as
we go down, In verse 7, Tobiah and Sanballat heard again, and
all the heathen tribes around, heard that the walls of Jerusalem
were made up and the breaches began to be stopped. They were
angry and they conspired to come and attack and fight. And that
verse that we saw last week, verse 9, nevertheless we made
our prayer unto our God and set a watch against them day and
night because of them. John Gill said of that verse,
that though they prayed to God and trusted him for deliverance,
they did not neglect the use of means. And that's what I was
trying to say. You know, yes, it's all in the
sovereign hands of God, but he uses means. And they prayed to
their God, but they set a watch. The setting of the watch? They
had physical bodies, they had minds, they had eyes to see,
they had weapons with which to defend themselves. They set a
watch. They looked to God, they prayed
to God, they trusted Him for deliverance, but they did not
neglect to use the means that there were. And so must we, in
the preaching of the gospel, in the supporting of the gospel
of grace. There are so many parallels in
this with the true church today. The true church is the object
of God's sovereign grace and mercy. It's the object of his
distinguishing grace. Why did he choose me? This is
the believer's perpetual question. When you really understand something
of sin and of the holiness of God and of salvation and of the
sovereignty of God, the child of God that is saved by God's
grace can only cry, why me? Why me? Not because I accepted
Him, not because I decided to invite Jesus into my heart, but
because He, in sovereign grace, before the world began, saved
me from my sins. And this is despised and scorned
by the world. This message is despised and
scorned, especially by the religious world. You know, the religious
world today, you may think that the Pharisees died out with Judaism
2,000 years ago. Didn't. They're there today. They're everywhere today, the
Pharisees, that won't defile themselves by eating with unwashen
hands, as the Scriptures say, from Christ's day. They won't
defile themselves by associating with publicans and sinners. No,
the Pharisees are there. with their particular brand of
the mosaic law, which they've taken and brought up to date
and made into what they think is the law today so that it can
be the believer's rule of life, the rule by which they can check
whether you're obeying church discipline and doing all the
right things in order to be allowed to do this, that, and the other.
The religious world, even the orthodox religious world, is
full of Pharisees, and those Pharisees despise and pour scorn
on the true gospel of God's grace. The true church of God is viewed
with contempt, just like this was by Sanballat and Tobiah.
They poured scorn and contempt on them, and so it is. We're
ignored. Those who seek to preach the
gospel of grace were ignored as not worthy of acknowledgement
as a church. You know, I told you about trying
to arrange that appointment for Don to preach in Liverpool the
other night. And the response I got was just
nothing, just completely ignored. They just think the best way
to deal with these people is just to ignore them and then
they'll go away. You know? This is what it is,
it's Sanballat and Tobiah. And we're treated as apostates,
those that have gone away from the mainstream. And we're not
submitting to their oversight and direction. And oh, this doctrine
of yours about particular redemption, this is extreme doctrine. You
shut so many people out. No, the world and the religious
world outside despises it. But this is exactly what Christ
told us to expect. I want you to turn to John chapter
15. Turn to John 15 and about verse
14, we'll start around there. Because I want you to see that
what happened to Nehemiah and those building the walls of Jerusalem,
in terms of the vicious opposition of Sanballat and Tobiah and all
those around them, is exactly what Christ told his true people
to expect in this world, in the religious world today. He was
hated, it says, in verse 25, the end of verse 25, they hated
me without a cause. Just as he was hated without
a cause, so will his true church be. Why is that? Well, here are
some reasons. And we'll look at this passage
as we go through. God ordained it that way. God
has ordained it the way that it is. For Christ to be hated
without a cause, and for his people to be hated without a
cause. It's all in the wisdom of God.
You ask me to give you an explanation of it? I can't. I don't understand
it. But it's the way God has ordained
things. It's written in the Psalms concerning
Christ who would come, Psalm 35, 19. Let not them that are
mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me, neither let them wink
with the eye that hate me without a cause. They hated me without
a cause. Psalm 69 verse 4. They that hate
me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head. They
all hated him, and the reason is, the love of God was not in
them, as we saw John say. The love of God was not in them.
If you look at this passage, he says, you are my friends if
you do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants,
but friends. Verse 16, you have not chosen
me, but I have chosen you, and ordained that you should go and
bring forth fruit. Verse 17, these things I command
you. that you love one another. That's
the second time he's said this in this chapter. Why does he
say it? Because you're going to be opposed. So love one another. Love one another. If the world
hates you, which it will, that's not a, well, maybe they will
and maybe they won't, that's a when the world hates you, you
know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of
the world, the world would love his own. But because ye are not
of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore
the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said
unto you, the servant is not greater than his lord. If they
have persecuted me, they will persecute you. If they have kept
my saying, they will keep yours also. This hatred is there, they
hated him. How did they hate him? They hated
him in that they slandered him. They called him a drunkard. They
called him a friend of sinners. They called him a breaker of
Moses' law because he walked in the fields with his disciples
on the Sabbath day and rubbed the grains of corn and ate the
grains of corn. They accused him of blasphemy
in saying that to the woman caught in adultery, your sins are forgiven. They accused him of all sorts
of things, of claiming to be God. They accused him of blasphemy.
They hated him. They hated him without a cause.
There was no cause for their hatred. He was harmless. He was
undefiled. He was gentle. He was meek. He went about doing good. He
went about healing the sick. He went about teaching with grace
and truth. We beheld his glory, said the
disciples, full of grace and truth. He went about doing all
of those things. He was the outshining of God's
glory. We beheld His glory, said John. We beheld His glory, the glory
as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. There was no cause, no cause
whatsoever, but they hated Him without a cause. They didn't
need a cause. They made a cause of their own in their sin, and
they hated Him. In Romans 8, in verses 7 and
8, we read that the carnal mind, the mind of the flesh, the mind
of the natural man, is enmity. It's an enemy of God. And that
in the flesh, we cannot please God. For without faith, it is
impossible to please him. They hated him, and they hate
his people and his church today because of the gospel. The gospel
that he preached was that he was the God-man redeemer, that
he was the one and in him, in him, the scriptures give witness
to this, that in him is righteousness established. In him is the sin-debt
taken away. To the world, the irreligious
world, that is foolishness. And to the religious world, it's
a stumbling block because surely I must be allowed to contribute
something. Surely I must be able to sew
some of my patches of my own righteousness on that seamless
robe of the righteousness of Christ. You know what your righteousnesses
are? Filthy rags. So many try to sew
filthy rags of their own righteousness on the seamless robe of the righteousness
of Christ. They hated him because he exposed
their sin. Christ exposed the sin of the
world. He told men and women exactly what was in their hearts.
He said in Mark 7, verses 20 to 23, that which cometh out
of the man It's that which cometh out of
the man that defileth the man, for from within out of the heart
of men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,
thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil
eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from
within and defile the man. Just as Paul tells us in Romans
1, 2, and 3. All of these evil things come
from within man because we're sin. We're born in sin, we're
conceived in sin. The moment we come into being,
we've got that trait of Adam, that sinful trait from our first
parent. We're sin altogether. And our
Lord Jesus Christ declared God's absolute sovereign grace. This
was the other reason that they hated him. Look at Luke's Gospel
in chapter 4. and verse 25, Luke 4 verse 25
Jesus has gone back to Nazareth where he was brought up he was
brought up in the household of Joseph and Mary who after Jesus
was born the son of the Virgin not the son of Joseph But the
son of his heavenly father conceived of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph
and Mary were a married couple who had many more children. Jesus
had brothers and sisters. One of them was James, one of
the apostles. And for a while many of them
disbelieved him. And he'd come back to Nazareth
and his fame was going In front of him, they'd heard of the wonderful
miracles that he'd done in Capernaum, and they expected more of the
same. Hey, our own boy's coming home,
we're going to have some good miracles go on here. And all
he did was he went into the synagogue, and they gave him the scroll
of the prophet Isaiah, And he found the place where it's written,
the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, et cetera. And he said, today,
this scripture is fulfilled in your ears. And they wondered
at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth. And they said,
amazed at his gracious words, isn't this Joseph's son? Isn't
this the lad that we knew grew up in the carpenter's shop? And
brothers and sisters, we know him, we know his family, we know
all about him. Where does he get? He only had an apprenticeship
in the carpenter shop. He didn't go to the great theological
schools of Jerusalem. How do these gracious words proceed
out of his mouth? And he said unto them, you will
surely say unto me this proverb, physician, heal thyself. Whatsoever
we've heard done in Capernaum, do also here. Come on, let's
see some of your miracles. And he said, verily, verily,
I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in his own country.
Now look what he says, but I tell you of a truth. Many widows were
in Israel. Ah, that's the place to be in
Israel. You know, God looks upon all Israel and they're all gonna
be saved. Many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah.
Elias is Elijah, it's just the Greek translation. When the heaven
was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was
throughout the land. There they are, Israel, the people
of God in great difficulty. To whom did relief come at the
hand of God? By the prophet Elijah. Verse
26, but unto none of them, none of those that were in Israel,
none of those widows in Israel was Elijah sent, save unto Sarepta,
a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow there, and she
was saved. And verse 27, and then let's
move forward into the days of Elijah. or Elysius as it's written
here and many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elysius
the prophet and none of them was cleansed what none of all
those lepers in Israel surely God wanted to do good to Israel
didn't he none of them was cleansed saving Naaman the Syrian the
Syrian not the Israelite why because of God's sovereign grace.
And what did they do? Oh, they were amazed at his gracious
words, but when he said that, God is a God of sovereign grace,
they were filled with wrath. They rose up and thrust him out
of the city and led him to the brow of a hill, to a cliff, whereon
their city was built, that they might throw him down it headlong.
But he passed through their way. They hated him because of the
gospel that he preached, of absolute sovereignty. Our Lord Jesus Christ
declared redemption in Christ alone, righteousness in Christ
alone, salvation by grace in him alone, through faith alone.
That was what he preached and proclaimed, that it was nothing
of man, it was all of the grace of God. And though he forgave
sinners freely, like the woman caught in adultery, and others,
thy son, thy sins be forgiven thee, though he forgave sinners
freely, this is what the Pharisees hated, he refused to acknowledge
any worth whatsoever in their righteousness, their own righteousness,
their works of righteousness, and they hated him. without a
cause because his condemnation was absolutely true. But as he
is hated, now listen to me, as he is hated without a cause,
do you know what he does in return? He saves without a cause. What cause was there in you or
me that should cause him to look on us as worthy objects of salvation? He is hated without a cause,
but he saves without a cause. And I would ask you, where do
you stand this morning? Do you stand with Sanballat and
Tobiah in their day, and all the world that hates God in Christ
and His people today? How can you tell where you stand?
Do you believe His gospel and love His Son? Do you believe
the gospel of His grace and love the Son of His love, the Son
who is the Redeemer? If you refuse to trust Him, If
you refuse to bow to Him and believe in Him, your unbelief
reveals your hatred of the Son of God. That's what it shows.
1 John chapter 5 verse 10. He that believeth on the Son
of God hath the witness in himself. You've got it there in yourself.
You believe Him. There's a new man in there. He
that believeth not God If you believe not God, let God be true
as we were seeing earlier in Romans 3, and every man a liar. He that believeth not God hath
made God a liar. You're telling God he's a liar,
you don't believe him. Because he believeth not the
record that God gave of his son, that he has sovereignly, in discriminating
grace, saved a people for his glory. But if you trust him,
your faith in him causes you to love him. I reminded you earlier
of those words in 1 Peter. And to you therefore which believe,
and therefore you love him, he is precious. You love him, he's
precious. But if not, that's why you're
on the outside opposing, hurling insults, seeking the destruction. Peter, do you love me? Lord,
you know all things. You know that I love you. And
because of that, don't be surprised when the world hates you, when
the world hates God's church, when the religious world seeks
to do nothing other than to either ignore or positively tear down
and destroy the true church of the living God.