I invite you to take your Bibles
now and turn back to the text which I read to you a few moments
ago in Acts chapter 4. I want to talk to you a little
while this morning about the name of the Lord. That's what it was all about,
wasn't it? Whose name these men were saying
these things. Whose name they were doing these
things? And by whose name are you going
so contrary to the things that have been established for thousands
of years? Things this world recognizes,
things your own people recognizes, things your own family recognizes. Why are you going so contrary?
And whose name do you do that in? What's this name all about? And I say this. I live and minister
to a generation unlike any before it. It's unlike any before it. Not that they're any more depraved
or less depraved than any other generation. And not that they
practice something more evil or more wicked than any other
generation. But in the sense that the religion
of Antichrist so abounds It so abounds and so permeates the
very fabric of our society that it's utterly impossible to find
anyone who is not infected with its principles and its ways. You can't find anyone. You can't
find anyone. And this, the Jewish nation,
now just try to follow with me here. After thousands of years
of tradition and ceremony, being mixed with the influence of natural
religion and logic, they set before us a figure of this generation
in which we now live. He set this nation apart as they
rejected the Christ and as they practiced a religion without
God. He sets them before us. Not only
are they a type of the true church, but they're also a type of the
false church. And they're a type set before
us in figure of this day. It reads like yesterday's newspaper. We've been studying and going
through the book of Genesis and Exodus, and now we're beginning
to look into the affairs of Israel, and it reads like yesterday's
news. It describes this generation to a T. To a T. And I hope you're not here this
morning and deceived by the religion of our day into some kind of
superstitious reverence for the nation of Israel, believing them
to be the children of God. We're told plainly in the scripture,
these are not the children of God. I don't know how you can
get any plainer than that. Do you? I read that to a fellow
one day. I read him all of the context
that led up to it, how that Paul prayed for him, poured his heart
out to God, and told why the world was so infatuated with
him and deceived by him, because all of the prophets and all of
these things came through him. And then he goes down and tells
him that these are not the children of God. And you know what the
fellow told me? He said, well, just in case, just in case they
are, he said, I'm going to keep on believing what I believe. The Lord said in His revelation
to John on the Isle of Patmos, He said, I know the blasphemy
of them which say they are Jews. No man would claim that who wasn't.
They'd rather tell people they were Romans because that was
the rule of the day. He said, I know the blasphemy
of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are of the synagogue
of Satan. Because these men could trace
their roots back to Abraham and could boast of the law and the
prophets, and because they were circumcised and observed all
of the ordinance, ordinances of God and kept the traditions
and ceremonies of the elders, Israel believed themselves to
be the children of God and so did those around them. Because
of their past history and great men and miracles of God that
attended their prophets and apostles, this world was convinced of the
same thing, that these men were of God. And when the Lord came
into this world, He condemned their religion. It's the first
thing He did. He condemned their religious
ways, calling their chief men vipers. That's what He called
them. John the Baptist, even before
Christ began his ministry, called them vipers. Vipers. Our Lord said that they were
blind leaders of the blind. He condemned their ways, calling
them hypocrites. and blind. He condemned their
converts, saying they were two-fold more the child of hell than they
were. He said, you come from sea and
earth to make one proselyte like unto yourself, and when you've
made him, he's two-fold more the child of hell than you are. He said in great plainness of
speech, You are of your father, the devil. And the Apostle Paul
explained this phenomenon this way, that all who appeared to be Israel
were not in reality Israel. Everybody that started out across
that wilderness was not true Israel. True Israel was there. They were there. But not everybody
was true Israel. And neither because they were
the children of Abraham were they all children. And he cites
the fact that Abraham had two sons, one by a bondmaid and the
other by his true bride, the free woman. And that one was
according to God's promise and power and the other according
to natural reason and logic. And that in Isaac, God confirmed
His covenant, not in Ishmael. In Isaac, he said, shall thy
seed be called. And then he explains that in
Romans 9, 8, that is, they which are the children of the flesh,
these are not the children of God, but the children of the
promise are counted for the seed. Now, I cannot stress to you this
morning the importance of being able to distinguish the difference
between natural worldly religion and the church of the living
God. If you don't have an understanding, you better get one. Because they'll
swallow you up. They're so deceitful, there's
no amount of reading, no amount of studying, no amount of anything
that's going to keep you out of their hands. They'll tie you
up in knots. You think you know your doctrine.
You think you really know something. You better be careful. That's
all I've got to say. You better be careful. They'll
tie you up in knots. They'll have you hanging. You
wonder what you believe. What do you believe? One is of God. Chosen and precious. One with Christ. Heirs of the
promise. Vessels filled with treasure. Sons of God. And all the rest,
can you hear me? All the rest are Antichrist. They're one of them. They're
one of them. An abomination of desolation,
a pretense, a deception, filled with darkness, twice dead, plucked
up by the root, vipers, hypocrites, pretenders to the crown. A preacher, if every son of Adam
is depraved by nature and has no ability to understand, no
will to seek God, no innate sense of goodness or righteousness,
and is literally surrounded by false religion, and the spirit
of Antichrist and all of Satan's snares and traps for him. All this intimidation. How is
this man ever to come to know the truth? How can anyone in
this kind of a shape ever be brought to distinguish the truth
from the lie? I'll give you two things. First
of all, it must be by divine intervention. God must intervene. Nothing's going to happen. Nothing's
going to happen except you're going to wander around with an
interest in religion until you find something that suits your
worthless soul. And then that's where you're
going to camp, and that's where you're going to live, and that's
where you're going to lust, and that's where you're going to
stay until you die and meet God in judgment. If God don't intervene,
nothing's going to happen. That's what I mean when I talk
about God's sovereign grace. God must intervene. God must
do the work. God must make the division. He
must arrange the providence. He got to do the work. He has
to give that. I can't make you hungry. Prepare
and pray and wrestle and do everything I need to do and get ready to
preach and then those whose faces I see, Before my eyes, they're
not here. They're not here. Why is that? Because I'm not in charge of
God's providence. He is. He is. He'll make the intervention.
He'll make the intervention. Oh. It must be by divine intervention. And any man, woman, boy, or girl
who comes to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, owes that work
to the free and sovereign grace of God. I know you know these
verses, but I want you to turn with me this morning to Ephesians
chapter 2, and let me read them one more time to you. Ephesians
chapter 2, verse 8. For by grace are ye saved." Ain't
that what that says? By grace are you saved. Through faith. Oh, that's man's work, is it?
Let's see what he says. And that, not of yourselves,
It is the gift of God, not of works. That is, not of
your works, lest any man should boast. Faith, true saving faith,
is the result of the effectual calling and revelation of the
gospel in us by the Holy Spirit of God. That's the only way you
can see it, experience it, and drink it down. That's the only
way. That's the only way. All right. Well, what is the gospel? What
is this gospel? Well, 1 Corinthians 15.1, he
says this. Just listen to these verses.
I know you're familiar with them. But he said, Brethren, I declare
unto you the gospel which I preached unto you. I preached the gospel
to you. That's what Paul said. Which
also ye have received, and wherein you stand. You made a profession
of faith. You received it. You said, I
believe it. This is where my hope is. And
you stand there. You took a stand. You was baptized. You joined a church. You took
a stand. You publicly identified with Christ. wherein you stand,
by which also you shall be saved, if you keep in memory what I
preached unto you. Otherwise, you believed in vain. You just made a false profession
of faith. For I delivered unto you, first
of all, that which I have also received, how that Christ died
for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried,
and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.
And He was seen of us and seen of the church, and it was given
to us to be witnesses for Him, witnesses of His life, His death,
His resurrection, and His ascension and intercession and glory. I'm
paraphrasing in those last words. The Gospel revelation is the
revelation of God's redemptive name in the person and work of
His Son. It tells you how God can save
worthless sinners. It declares God's true character
and name. Now, He's not going to save anybody
apart from that. He's not going to save anybody. Let me ask you some questions.
These are probably things you've never thought about. Why did
God publicly crucify His Son? Now, why didn't He take Him out?
Why didn't He purpose to take Him out like Abraham did with
Isaac up on a mountaintop? Just him and Isaac. and slay
Him there on the altar. Why did He publicly crucify His
Son? If He intended for Him to be
a general, a universal sin offering and it's not significant to anybody
in particular, why did the Lord kill Him in the way that He did? Why didn't He take Him out to
some secluded mountain and there in the presence of two or three
witnesses offer Him up? If the death of the substitute
is all that's involved in the sacrifice, why must the Romans
be involved? I read it to you at the end of
this chapter. These Roman governors and kings
and rulers, why must they be involved? Why must the Gentiles
be involved? They've had no part in this thing
for thousands of years. Now, why all of a sudden do they
have a part in it? Why must they get involved in
it? Why the people of Israel? Why these false prophets? All the false religions, all
of their proselytes, all of them involved in His death. Why must
the Son of God be subjected to this humility and shame? Why
must His death be a public spectacle? Turn with me back to Acts chapter
4. Because through His death and
His life and His resurrection, that name of God was manifested
to this world. That's why. God was manifesting
His name. That's why He did it. And there's
not a part of His name that you can't find in that crucifixion
and in that life and in that resurrection and in that intersection.
God's whole name and character is revealed to all openly. This thing wasn't done in a corner,
ain't that what they said? Whom you crucified, with wicked
hands you crucified and slayed the Son of God, that's what Peter
preached. Salvation by faith is by divine
intervention and it's through a divine revelation of the redemptive
name of God, Acts chapter 4 verse 10. Be it known unto you all,
and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ
of Nazareth, whom you have crucified, whom God raised from the dead,
even by him does this man stand here before you whole. This is
the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which has become
head of the corner. Now listen, neither is there
salvation in any other. Now Paul said they preach another
Jesus. That's what he said. That's what
my pastor said to me. They preach another Jesus. They
preach Him with another spirit. They preach another gospel. And
Paul said if they come preach another gospel, he said, let
them be accursed. He said, I don't care if it's
me or an angel from heaven. I don't care who it is. If they
preach another gospel, let them be accursed. Neither is there salvation in
any other, for there is none other name under heaven given
among men whereby we must be saved." God's name is who He
is. It's who He is. He's Jehovah
Jireh. All through the Old Testament,
God establishes His name. I'm not going to give you all
of them. I'll give you nine of them. He's Jehovah Jireh, the
Lord who provides. He's Jehovah Rapha, the Lord
who healeth thee. He is Jehovah Nissi, the Lord
our banner. Jehovah Kadesh, the Lord our
sanctification. Jehovah Rea, the Lord our shepherd. Jehovah Elohim, the Lord our
God. Jehovah Shalom, the Lord our
peace. Jehovah Sidcanu, the Lord our
righteousness. Jehovah Shema, the Lord is present. There is no possibility of salvation,
no possibility of eternal life, or any semblance of true Christianity
apart from knowing the true and living God. Knowing the true
and living God, who He is, is eternal life. That's what it
is. Eternal life is not being able
to speak in tongue. Eternal life is to know Him,
who is life. Christ who is our life. That's how they taught. And His
name is who He is. John said this in 1 John 5, I
think it's verse 20, And we know that the Son of God has come
and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is
true, and that we're in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus
Christ. This is the true God and eternal
life. How does this gracious intervention
of God, how does it come to the sinner? How does the sinner come
to know this name? He said, whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how are you going
to call on Him in whom you have not believed? And how are you
going to believe in Him of whom you have not heard? There has
to be an understanding. There has to be a revelation.
There has to be a teaching. Well, how does this gracious
intervention of God come to the sinner? It comes to him in three
distinct ways. It comes to him, first of all,
by gracious intervention of God in the affairs of his life. He
brings his elect by circumstance and situation to hear his gospel. Well, can you get a little bit
more particular? No. No, I can't. I can't. Because
the examples of this are as many as the stars in the sky and the
sand on the seashore. Just about as numerous as there
are people that he calls. I don't know. I don't know what
it is that brought you here this morning. I don't know what it
was that brought you the first time you ever heard the gospel,
you that are in here and believe. I don't know. I don't know what
it was. I just know that the hand of God intervened and whatever
it is, the result of it was you would come here to hear. You
come here to hear. I can't give you any particulars.
All these experiences vary. But there's something that takes
place in your life that prompts you to hear the gospel of God's
saving grace. And then secondly, He sends you
a preacher. He sends you a preacher. It may
be in the form of a book. It may be in the form of a pamphlet.
It may be in the form of a man standing up here like I'm standing
up here this morning. But he's going to cross your
path with a preacher. Somebody has to tell you the
truth, because you don't know it. You think you know it, but
you don't know it. You think you're saved, but you're
not saved. You think you're walking with
God, but in truth, you're a child. You're twofold more the child
of hell than that idiot that taught you and deceived you. You have to come to hear the
truth. And so God intervenes. We have received this adoption.
We have attained this adoption being predestinated by Him who
worketh all things after the counsel of His own will. And
what did this One who worketh all things after the counsel
of His own will do? He sent you a preacher and taught
you the gospel. That's what He did. That's what
He did. Preachers are God's ministers.
God Himself ordains, teaches, and equips his ministers and
their whole ministry is a going where they are sent. I don't
know anything that better describes that than that very statement
right there. How shall they preach except
they be sent? Their whole life is ascending. God sends them. He draws from
this direction and sends from this direction and crosses your
path with a man who tells you the truth. That's how it works. I tell you what, why I preach,
I just don't believe that. I just don't believe that. That's
why you're not a believer. That's exactly why. In particular, what his ministers
preach that the rest of the world has missed altogether is the
name of God revealed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Christ of
faith and salvation is the Christ who bears God's name. That's how our Lord set himself
apart from all these hypocrites, from all of Israel and the high
priest. This is how his apostles set
him apart. Same way. I came not to do my
own will, he said, but the will of him that sent me. All these
works that I do, he said, I don't do them in my name, I do them
in the name of the Father who sent me. You know what he said? All through his ministry, he
just kept telling them, I'm here in his name. I'm doing works
in his name. I must be about the Father's
business. And when Philip said, show us
the Father, what did the Lord tell him? Have I been so long
time with you, have you not seen the Father? His name's in me. His name's in me. Christ of faith and salvation
is the Christ who bears God's name. He said, except you believe
that I am, you'll die in your sins. God's sovereignty. My soul, has there ever been
another manifestation of God's sovereign power than that of
the cross? All of these people All of them
with contrary ideas and contrariness of religion, and some were rank
idolaters, and some of them were false prophets, and all of these
people, and proselytes, and it's such a mixed company there, a
multitude, and every one of them did exactly what they wanted
to do, and when they did it, they did exactly what God's hand
and God's counsel determined before to be done. There ever
been another act of providence, of sovereignty, absolute sovereignty,
as it was at the cross. And God's mercy, and God's wisdom,
and God's grace, and God's righteousness, and His holiness, and His justice,
and God's love, they're all revealed in perfect harmony. And this
is where religion misses it altogether. These things must be in harmony.
Don't y'all believe in God's mercy? Well, sure we do, but
not at the expense of His justice. That's why we can't get along.
They want to do away with God's justice to have mercy. The Gospel
has all of these attributes in perfect harmony in the salvation
of sinners through the Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn't compromise
anything. God cannot desire the salvation
of all men and be disappointed. He'd compromise His sovereignty
if He did that. He cannot love all men and send
some to hell. He'd compromise His love. He
cannot die for all men and then condemn some. He'd compromise
His justice if He did that. He cannot show grace and then
demand works. It'd be a compromise of His grace.
If it be of works, then it's no more grace. Ain't that what
He said? The way God saves sinners is in complete harmony with His
name. And that's always the issue. Always the issue. Well, I just
don't see what your church preaches that our church don't preach.
The name of God. That's where it's at. That's
where it's at. That's always the issue. And
false religion and anti-Christ religion always, always compromises
the name of God. That's the problem. It always projects God as trying
to do what He can't do. It always leaves God disappointed
and frustrated and defeated and pitied. Every message I ever
heard at the altar call at the end in that old Nazarene church
tried to get everybody in the place to pity God. Pity God. His death will be a waste if
you don't come down this aisle. I can't imagine, can you? These things are not the gospel
of Christ. The gospel of Christ is always
yea and amen. That's what it falls in. It's yea and amen. Ain't no maybes
in it. The Christ of God who said He
came in His Father's name to do His Father's will and work
the work of His Father was never frustrated, never defeated, always
victorious. Always was. And when God saves
a sinner, He strips him naked of all his righteousness. All that old self-righteousness
of religion. He strips him bare. He takes
his fig leaves away. He moves the tree out of the
way. He strips him naked of all his righteousnesses. He don't
have any anymore. He's in need of one. That which is highly esteemed
among men to be an abomination to God. And God strips him of
his pride. He breaks him. He brings him
down into the dust. Makes him to confess what he
is. Despise what he is. Makes him
ashamed of himself. And no pride left in the leper. He wasn't even supposed to be
there. And he didn't come in there like he had a right to
be there. He came in and threw himself down in the dirt and
said, Lord, if you will, if you will, you can cleanse me. You can make me whole. Ain't
no pride left in the leper. Ain't no pride left in Bartimaeus. Ain't no pride left in the paralyzed
man at the pool. Ain't no pride Pride left in
the young harlot cast at his feet or the demoniac brought
into his presence. There was no pride there. They
were stripped of all their pride. And when God saves a seeking
sinner, He strips him of all his self-confidence. Watch out
for the man who is always filled with self-confidence. Watch out. You better put a big question
mark on it. The first thing God does in the work of conversion
is kill the sinner, He destroys self. Self-righteousness and self-exaltation
and self-promotion and self-centeredness. I'm a self-made man. You might
be, but you're not God's man. God kills self. He kills you. Those who are in true circumcision,
Paul said, have no confidence in the flesh. Ain't that what
he said in Philippians 2? And then fourthly, God strips
him of his rule. Any man who still governs himself
is not a converted man. God sets up his rule in his heart
and he rules him. He rules him with his means and
his way through his church, through his authority in his kingdom.
He rules over Romans 6, verse 16, know you not that to whom
you yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are
to whom you obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience
unto righteousness. The natural man, he said, receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
unto him. He's still running the show,
John. Can't talk to him. Can't talk to him. Try to tell
him this is God's Word. He'll tell you that's out of
date. That brilliant men have sat down in our age with a better
understanding and more tools and more equipment and they've
reinterpreted the Word of God and they wrote it like it ought
to be wrote. And they'll go over here to some Bible that doesn't
say anything about anything and try to teach you the Gospel of
God's sovereign grace. When here you've got the Word
of God that He's preserved for I don't know how many hundreds
and hundreds and hundreds of years. was good to save all the
souls from clear back to when God first printed it into English. And yet, what's he do? He'll
run to anything else there is under the sun and try to use
that as the foundation of faith. He's still running the show.
He's still judging matters by his own wisdom. He's still following
the way that seemeth right unto a man. There's been no intervention. There's been no slaying of the
spirit, no convincing of sin, no defeating of the strong man.
He still stands in his pride and self-righteousness and prudence
and mocks the free grace of God. He's never been brought down. Never been brought down. That
man's not teachable. He's not submissive. And he has
no appetite. The man to whom God reveals his
name is a broken man, humbled of God, hungry to hear, a sinner
in need of mercy. You can't preach too much grace
for him. You ever just had so much? We
went to Walter's the other night and had fish. And I had so much
fish, I finally had to push the plate back. A sinner will never
push back the plate of grace. He'll never do it. He can't get
enough. You can't fill him up. Huh? You can't give him enough hope.
You can't preach Christ's righteousness too strong for him. He loves
it. He's got an appetite for it.
He drinks it. He lives for it. For me to live
is Christ and to die is gain. Huh? Oh, he's hungry. He's hungry. He's in need of mercy. He's got
no righteousness. Oh, he looks at his own heart
and he finds in there nothing but hypocrisy. You can't preach
too much grace for him. You can't make him shove back
the plate of mercy and you can't run him away from the table when
it's time to eat. He'll be standing there waiting.
I come out of my room this morning, my wife said, what did you do,
smell food? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I did. Oh, you can't
run him away from the table when it comes time to eat. The Lord
said, the fool's soul loatheth even the honeycomb, but the hungry
soul, to him every bitter thing is sweet. Sweet. Salvation demands an intervention
of grace, and it requires an inward work of grace, and salvation
needs a spiritual hearing and true saving faith Oh, it demands
a declaration of God's redemptive name. You can't call on an unrevealed
Christ. And here's what he said. Here's
what he said over here in Acts 4. This is the stone that said
if not of all you builders. This is what religious antichrist
sets aside. They set it aside as foolishness.
They set it aside as a cult. Y'all must be a cult. You're
way over there by yourself. Can't be friends with anybody.
I can't be friends with anybody who wants to mock God's name.
I don't want to be friends with them. I don't want to be friends
with them. You set it at naught. But God
made it the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in
any other, for there is none other name given under heaven."
Huh? Among men, whereby we must be
saved. That's why we preach what we
preach. That's what we preach. In all that I preach, I'm trying
to set forth His name and His glory and describe Him so you
can call on Him. He's not going to appear to you
in a dream. He's going to appear to you in the Word of God as
He's sent forth of God in the Gospel. And it's to Him, it's
that name we call on. And the perfection and harmony
of that name that we hold dear in our heart when we call on
Him. And the man who discovers that is a saved man. He's a saved
man. He must be saved that calls on
that name. Our Father, I pray this morning
that you use the message. Apply it to our hearts and minds. Oh, don't let us follow after
our own ways and the ways of this world, nor be intimidated
by this world, nor of any of the events and circumstances
in it. Let's rest in Him. Rest this
providence that we know worketh all things together for our good
in your glory. Rest in the gospel that we know
that's been revealed to our hearts and rejoice in it, hope in it,
and live by it. We ask it for Christ's sake.
Amen.