What's Wrong With My Religion?

Q: What does the Bible say about false religion?

The Bible condemns false religion as a cursed practice that leads people away from God's grace. The Scriptures describe false religion in the most severe terms, referring to it as fornication, adultery, and even sodomy. Particularly in Habakkuk, false religions are depicted as systems that leave individuals proud and unrepentant, teaching self-salvation and building false refuges to avoid God's judgment. This 'religion of this world' is condemned throughout the Bible, highlighting the necessity of grace through Christ rather than human effort for salvation.

Q: How do we know God's judgment on false religion is true?

God's judgment is affirmed through Scripture, emphasizing that all false religions will face His wrath. In Habakkuk 2, the prophet declares that all false religion, often termed Babylon, is subject to God's judgment. The passage indicates that those who have misled others, taking away the wealth of truth and grace, will themselves be spoiled in judgment. This assures believers that God's justice is inescapable and that He has sworn to repudiate any form of religion that leads away from His glory and grace, thus confirming the truth of His judgment against falsehood.

Q: Why is salvation through grace important for Christians?

Salvation through grace is essential because it emphasizes that redemption is a gift from God, not earned by human effort. Understandably, the concept of grace is paramount to true Christianity as it underscores the belief that we are saved not by works, but through God's initiative alone. Ephesians 1 elaborates that our salvation is accomplished by God's eternal purpose and the blood of Christ, which is the only sufficient means for our redemption. This realization is liberating, fostering humility in believers as they acknowledge their total dependence on God's grace, instead of their accomplishments or decisions that many other religions promote.

Q: What is the character of false religions according to the Bible?

False religions are characterized by pride, self-deception, and ultimately lead to destruction. The Bible portrays false religions as prideful, fostering a sense of superiority in adherents. Such religions teach individuals to rely on their own actions for salvation, thereby building a false sense of security and independence from God. This leads to spiritual deception, as many believe they are justified through their own merit instead of faith in Christ. The end of all false religions is destruction, as they cannot withstand God's judgment and ultimately lead their followers away from the truth of the gospel.

Q: How should Christians respond to false religion?

Christians are called to separate themselves from false religions and embrace the purity of the gospel. The Christian response to false religion is one of separation and discernment. Scripture calls believers to depart from Babylon, signifying a rejection of any form of false worship or misleading teachings. This separation involves a commitment to uphold the gospel of grace, recognizing that true worship is found in Christ alone. By doing so, Christians protect themselves from the corrupting influence of false religions and ensure that their faith remains grounded in truth and righteousness.

I want us to begin tonight in
Revelation chapter 19. I was up late Sunday night when
the news began to break. that Osama bin Laden had been
killed. At first, I thought they said
Obama had been killed, and I thought, oh, no, we got Biden. But it
was Osama bin Laden. I didn't say that by accident.
I wanted the tape to get that. But I couldn't help but to feel
great disgust for myself And for others, as I listened, as
men gloated over the fact that the man's now in hell. The thought of the damned. It's horribly painful, even when the damned are your
own implacable enemies. But it shall not always be so. Read Revelation chapter 19 with
me. After these things, I heard a
great voice of much people in heaven saying, hallelujah. Salvation and glory and honor
and power unto the Lord our God. For true and righteous are his
judgments. For he hath judged the great
whore. which did corrupt the earth with
her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at
her hand. He hath judged the great whore,
which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and hath avenged
the blood of his servants at her hand. And again they said,
Alleluia. and her smoke rose up forever
and ever. And the four and twenty elders
and the four beasts, all the host of God's elect and all prophets,
preachers, apostles, and evangelists, all the twenty-four elders and
the four beasts fell down and worshiped God that sat on the
throne saying, Amen. Alleluia and the voice came out
of the throne saying praise our God all ye his servants and ye
that fear him both small and great and I heard as it were
a voice of a great multitude And as a voice of many waters
and as the voice of a mighty thunderings saying alleluia for
the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Try to get a picture of what
we just read. Judgment has come. The wicked
have been cast into hell. And the saints of God, all the
saints of God are singing, shouting praise to God with joy and thanksgiving. because his true and righteous
judgments had been executed and are being executed forever upon
his enemies. What an awesome scene. As eternity
commences, the saints of God in heaven are rejoicing and praising
him for the damnation of the wicked. This passage of Holy
Scripture declares most forcibly and most plainly that the eternal
torments of the damned will be a subject of eternal praise among
the redeemed. The eternal torments of the damned
will be a subject of eternal praise among the redeemed. The anguish The torment, the
sorrow, the weeping, the wailing, the gnashing of teeth of the
multitudes in hell will cause no anguish among God's saints
in heaven. It does now, but it won't then. Who will sing this song that
we just read? The song is a song of grace sung
by the multitude in heaven. And it's the same multitude that
we've seen throughout the book of Revelation. It's the whole
church of God's elect. This is the great elect multitude
who sing the praises of God for his great salvation. The 144,000
who have been sealed by our God. These are the men and women who
have been redeemed by the blood of the lamb out of every nation
and kindred and tribe and tongue who have washed their robes and
made them white in the blood of the lamb. These are those
blessed dead ones who have died in the Lord and are now standing
before God in his glory. This is that great multitude
which lived and died in every generation in the history of
the world by the power of God and the will of God for the word
of God and for the glory of God and for the testimony of our
Lord Jesus Christ. The day of retribution has come.
And these chosen, redeemed, saved, glorified souls are singing over
the very souls of the damned, for whom once they prayed earnestly,
for whom once they labored zealously, for whom they lived to proclaim
the gospel sacrificially. But now those who were the objects
of their great concern and care are the objects of God's wrath
and for that they sing God's praise. Here the Lord Jesus is
singing over Jerusalem over which he once wept. Oh, Jerusalem,
Jerusalem. Here is the Apostle Paul singing
over his kinsmen of whom he once wished himself or for whom he
once wished himself a curse from Christ. Here's David singing
as he hears Absalom's screeches and hail. Absalom, for whom once
he sobbed in bitterness. All the prophets are singing.
All the apostles are singing. All the saints are singing. All
the angels are singing. All singing because of the judgment
of God upon the wicked. What's the theme of their song?
Again they said, they said, Alleluia. And her, that is Babylon's smoke,
arose up forever. and ever. That word hallelujah
means praise Jehovah. Praise Jehovah. The Lord God
omnipotent reigneth! Amen! Praise Jehovah! Everything's exactly as it should
be. This word also is an expression
of admiration and wonder so that now every glorious view of Christ
Every act of his hand, every word of his mouth, every revelation
of his character, every display of his majesty, greatness, power,
and glory erupts with praise in the hearts of God's elect,
even as the smoke of Babylon's torments arise up from hell. What's the occasion of all this?
Babylon has fallen. The great whore that made the
earth drunk with the wine of her fornication is now under
the wrath of God. Antichrist has now been cast
into hell. The beast in the false prophet
had been cast into the great pit. One of these days, God's
going to get around to judging this world. He's going to get
around to judging this thing called religion. which has corrupted
the earth with her fornication, which has persecuted God's saints
in every age. And in our text, the Lord God
has finally caught up with Babylon. All the promoters and followers
of free will works religion here are cast into hell and God's
saints shout universally, Amen. Hallelujah. So be it. Praise Jehovah! The Lord God
Omnipotent reigneth. He has reigned. We've been proclaiming
that. He is reigning and he shall continue
to reign. Babylon has harmed nothing. Hell has done no harm. Satan has caused no difficulty. The Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Turn to Habakkuk chapter two.
Let's take one more look at this second chapter of Habakkuk, where
God's prophet prophesied of this great judgment deed that shall
proceed from the throne of God. The title of my message tonight is What's Wrong With My Religion?
What's wrong with my religion? And my preaching really is not
going to be much of my preaching. I'm going to make some statements
and we're going to read scripture because I want you to see that
everything I'm saying comes directly from this book. The religion
of this world is specifically cursed of God. I realize that people think I'm
a bit too dogmatic, I'm a bit too harsh, a bit too divisive,
a bit too uncompromising, a bit too separating, a bit too of
almost anything negative. And I plead guilty. And I promise
you that I haven't yet begun to be as dogmatic as I hope to
be. as separating as I want to be,
as determined as I hope to be, to make clear that God has cursed
the religion of this world. People ask all the time. They don't ask me, they ask other
folks. Why doesn't your pastor have anything to do with this,
that, or the other? Why doesn't Brother Don have any association
with this group or that group? It's purposeful. It's purposeful. I intend, God helping me, never
to in any way identify myself with false religion. Never! Not
with those who preach it, not with those who embrace it as
though they are brethren, and not with its doctrine. Not in
any way. The religion of this world is
cursed by God and spoken of by our God. by our Savior, by his
prophets, by his apostles, in this book, in the most vile terms
you can imagine. Do you know what the practice
of religion is? How it's described in this book?
Do you know how it's described? Fornication. Folks go to church,
they're committing fornication. Adultery. Folks go to church,
profess to be God's people, and they go down there and worship
some false god, worship at the altar of man's will. They're
committing adultery. Sodomy. Is that how it's described, Larry?
Sodomy. Why wouldn't anybody think I
was a sodomite? Me either. How do you avoid that? Stay away
from them. Don't worship where they do. Don't practice the filth
they practice. The religion of this world is
called the way of Cain, the error of Balaam, the gainsaying, the
foolishness of Korah. False religion is compared to
a strange woman. Streetwalker, Proverbs chapter
7, the whole chapter is all about this strange woman who entices
a man and takes him to hell. A strange woman who entices a
man and takes him to hell. The angel of God calls it Babylon,
the great whore and the mother of harlots. And you thought I
was too strong. False religion is the broad way
that always leads to destruction. Yet it's the religion that is
most naturally embraced, followed, taught and defended by all men. Everywhere. It's the way that
seems right to a man. It's the way that gives you something
to do. Gives you some place where you
can look at this whole thing called salvation and eternal
life, and you can say, there! That's mine. God didn't do that. I did. And that's what makes
the difference. Well, Brother Don, that's what
all religion says, except the gospel of God's free grace. That's
what I've been trying to tell you for 32 years. That's what
all religion says, except the gospel of God's grace. When confronted
with the gospel of Christ, People, your family and mine, your neighbors
and mine, people coil up like snakes ready to strike. And they'll ask you, what's wrong
with my religion? And when pressed with the claims
of Christ in the gospel, realizing immediately that the light of
the gospel exposes the blackness of their chosen form of idolatry,
they pull a shield around themselves and draw out a sword and they're
ready to go to war. They want to defend Dagon. Pick
him up, set him in his place, and defend him. And they will
defend Dagon. They will defend their God with
more vehemence, with greater temper, and with more determination
than they will defend their own families. Well, I want to try
to answer this question. What's wrong with my religion?
So evil is the religion of this world. The religion of Babylon. The religion of Antichrist. All
free will works religion. Doesn't matter what name you
call it. Doesn't matter what its history is. Doesn't matter
who accepts it or who doesn't. All religion that makes salvation
somewhere depend on you. All of it is Babylon. The Lord
God has sworn to publicly repudiate it and destroy it in the day
of judgment. That's what the second chapter
of Habakkuk is all about. In the eighth verse of that chapter,
the prophet of God declares, all the remnant of the people
shall spoil thee. What a declaration. All the remnant
of the people shall spoil thee. Look at it, Habakkuk 2 verse
8. Because thou hast spoiled many
nations. Now that's a term we don't much
use in our day, spoiling. We think about spoiling, we think
about a mother or a father who spoils their child and turns
them into little brats. Gives them everything they want,
never says no to them. That's not what the word means here.
It's talking about those who take the wealth of another. One nation conquers another and
they take the spoils. To the victor go the spoils,
we say. This is what it's talking about.
Because Babylon, because you have spoiled many nations, you
have taken all the wealth of the nations. Because you have
gone in and taken everything good from the nations. All the
remnant, not part of them, all the remnant. You know who the
remnant is? The remnant, Don Renari, is you. God's elect is the remnant. All
the remnant is all the host of God's elect. All the remnant
of the people. those gods chosen out of these
nations, out of every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue. All
gods elect shall spoil you. God's people shall be the spoilers
at last. How come? Why this judgment upon
Babylon? Because of men's blood and for
the violence of the land and the city and of all that dwell
therein. Men's blood? Violence? Does that describe the religion
of this world? I ask you, who been there? I
ask you, who been there? Does it describe the religion
you come from? Most churches have squabbles
regularly, all the time, about nothing. fuss and fight among
themselves. And when it's needful, or they
think it needful, they think nothing of going to war. Denominations
and groups of churches fighting against others, both Protestant
and Papist, Buddhist and Islamic, Jewish and others, go to war
with violence, defending their God and their God's territory. Why has the Lord God pronounced
such judgment upon the religion of this world? What's so terribly
wrong with it? Does any will worship Armenian
ask? Does any happy, clappy, charismatic
ask? Does any papist ask? Does any
Mohammedan ask? Does any religious legalist ask? What's wrong with my religion?
Let me give you six answers from Habakkuk chapter two. Number
one. Babylon all false religion all
free will works religion Causes men all who adhere to it to swell
with pride Teaches folks to swell with pride
they talk about humility they talk about they talk about Submission
and loneliness, but they teach me to swell with pride whereas
the gospel of the grace of God Laying sinners low in the dust
before the throne of God and teaches us to live by faith in
our Redeemer. Habakkuk chapter 2 verse 4. Behold his soul which is lifted
up. He is not upright in him. His
soul which is lifted up. God's done everything he can
to save sinners. Multitudes are perishing. Won't
you let the Lord save you? And you decide to let the Lord
save you. Now try to be humble. Now try to talk to me about humility.
You let God do something. His soul is lifted up. It's not
upright. That man's not justified. He's
not justified. But the just shall live by his
faith. The just live trusting a substitute.
The just live trusting another. Yea, also because he transgresseth
by wine, he is a proud man. Because he's been sipping from
Babylon's cup, he's a proud man. Neither keepeth at home, who
enlargeth his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be
satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations. eateth unto him all people." When I was in Bible college,
took evangelism classes, soul winning classes. They were required
courses. And they taught us how to go out and buttonhole folks,
knock on doors and get people to make professions of faith.
It teaches us to preach. Well, they tell us that you want
to preach and build to a crescendo. And what you want to do is you
want to get a fellow to make a profession of faith before he realizes what
he's done. Isn't that wonderful? It's called slaughtering the
souls of men. Insatiably seeking to gather others to yourself,
following you in your path of darkness. Ungodly as ungodly
becomes. I recall, I told somebody just
the other day, but B.B. Caldwell, Merle, he calls him
coming to this area preaching years ago. He's down in Greenville,
South Carolina, where the Citadel of Antichrist is, Bob Jones University. And he out feeding pigeons. And two fellas came by, those
B.J. Sowinners came by. They said,
sir, are you saved? Caldwell threw some more, whatever
he's throwing out there, pigeon seed or corn or something. He
said, well, if I ain't, what would you two goober heads do
about it? As if you could do something
about it. Making merchandise of men's souls. That's not how
God's gospel deals with men. Anything that makes you swell
with pride, that makes you think, there, this is something that
I have done by which I have distinguished myself from others, is Antichrist. I don't care what it is. I don't
care what it is. I don't care whether it's something
you teach concerning the church and something you teach concerning
giving, something you teach concerning missionary work, something you
teach concerning evangelism, something you teach concerning
sanctification or justification, anything! that makes you look
at yourself and say, well, I know I'm a poor sinner, but thank
God I'm not like that fellow. I did choose Jesus. I'm not like
that fellow. I had decided to give my life
to the Lord. I'm not like that fellow. I had
decided to start serving the Lord. Listen to the book. Who maketh thee to differ? Is that the language of this
book? What hast thou that thou didst not receive? I repented. Oh, did you now? Did you now? If there's any repentance in
you, God created it, and He continues to. Well, I chose the Lord! Did you? Did you really? Pastor, I do seek Him. Because
He sought you. And it's His seeking you that
causes you to seek Him. His choosing you causes you to
choose Him. Well, I had to believe! Yes,
you did. You sure did. But don't you ever
imagine that your believing made any difference. Thy faith has saved thee, the
Master said. That's true. That's absolutely true. You'll
not be saved without it. But faith is God's gift. It's
the operation of God in you. Now, what was it you've received?
What do you have that you've not received? And if you received
it, why do you glory as if you had not received it? Number two,
Babylon. All false religion, all freewill
works religion teaches sinners to save themselves from evil
by building a refuge. Look at verse 9. Woe to him that coveteth an evil
covetousness to his house. What is this talking about? That
he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from
the power of evil. Well, that's talking about a
man He wants to make himself rich and put a lot of money in
the bank, buy a lot of land so that when the time of famine
comes, he'll be all right. Maybe, but I'm sure it's talking
about a lot more than that. I'm sure it's talking about a
lot more than that. Those who set their nest on high,
who build themselves a refuge so that they may be delivered
from the power of evil. Go all the way back to Genesis
chapter 11 and the building of the Tower of Babel. Babylon,
all false religion, teaches you to make a refuge for yourself.
Well, I've made my peace with God. If you have, I promise you,
you don't have any. I've made things right with the
Lord. If you have, I promise you, they're not. No, sir. Sir,
the gospel of the grace of God destroys every refuge of lies
and saves sinners from the evil. We won't try to read the first
two chapters of Ephesians, but you mark this down and mark it
down clearly. Every aspect of salvation, every
particle of salvation, everything involved in salvation, God's
work and God's doing and not yours We're told in Ephesians
1 that we're saved by the eternal purpose of God Almighty His purpose
of grace in Christ Jesus We're told plainly that we're saved
by the precious blood of Jesus Christ who by his blood obtained
eternal redemption for us and We're saved by the mighty power
of God the Holy Spirit who exercises that same power which he wrought
in Christ when he raised him from the dead, giving us faith
in Christ. The new birth, you see, is nothing
less than a resurrection from the dead. It's God giving life
to dead sinners. The second chapter of Ephesians
tells us about how God has wrought this work in us. You hath he
quickened who were dead in trespasses and in sins. So that salvation
comes not by something you do to build a refuge, but rather
it comes by the refuge God has built and puts you in, causing
you to flee to Christ Jesus the Lord. He says concerning your refuge,
you made a covenant with death. You went to Sunday school and
made a profession of faith. You went to church when they
had a revival down at the church and the preacher started to tell
a sob story and everybody started making a confession and you came
down to the altar and somebody told you what to say and you
said a little prayer and you said, I believe in Jesus and
oh, now I've got a covenant with death. I'll not die. Salvation's
mine. I'm going to heaven as sure for
heaviness if I was already there. God says, I'll lay righteousness
to the line and judgment to the plummet. And your refuge of lies
is going to crumble in that day. You've got to have something
more than a feeling, something more than an emotion. You've
got to have refuge that will meet the standard of the Holy
God. Righteousness, justice, and truth. And that refuge is Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. Number three. Number three. Look
at verse 12. Babylon. All false religion. All freewill works religion is
built by the blood of immortal souls, sacrificed upon the altar
of man's pride and covetousness. Woe to him that buildeth a town
with blood and establisheth a city by iniquity. All false religion is built by
the blood of immortal souls sacrificed upon the altar of man's pride
to give a man a feather in his cap, to give a church a larger
number of baptisms, to give a denomination an increase for the year, whatever
it takes to get men in. I've heard this all my life.
We've got to do something to get folks in. We've got to do
something to get folks to come to church. Got to do something
to build the church. God, give me grace. We'll do
nothing here to build God's church, except preach the gospel of God's
free grace. The building of the church is
God's work. God's work alone. Well, but preaching
to other churches are entertaining folks. Other churches, they've
got their theaters and their ball teams and their cantatas
and their plays and their skits and their stuff. Everybody thinks we're oddballs.
Mark, it's on purpose. It's on purpose. I tend to be
an oddball. It didn't stay that way. What
do you do? We preach Jesus Christ crucified,
sit down and pray. and ask God to build his church. Ask God to open a door for the
gospel. Make us faithful to the labor he's given us, but the
work is his work and his alone. The Lord still daily adds to
his church such as should be said. The church and kingdom
of God is built upon the precious blood of Christ, sacrificed upon
the altar of divine justice, in our room instead. You know
that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver
and gold from your vain, meaningless, empty, worthless life, received
by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of
Christ. With the precious blood of Christ,
God's darling son, poured out his life's blood that I might
have life. What a horrible thought that
I should compromise his glory, his blood, his sacrifice, his
finished work for some mundane, personal, earthly covetousness. Number four, the religion of
Babylon All false religion, all freewill works religion exposes
and looks upon man's nakedness. Look at verse 15. Woe unto him that giveth his
neighbor drink, that putteth thy bottle to him, and makest
him drunken also. that thou mayest look on their
nakedness. Do you remember what Ham did
with Noah? He exposed his father's nakedness. Now, except for the insane men
like we have in our day, this insane society in which we live,
the only way you get a man to expose his nakedness is to get
him drunk. I know that's not true these
days anymore, but I'm not talking about ordinary folks. I'm talking
about ordinary folks now. The only way you can expose their
nakedness is to get them intoxicated somehow, out of their mind somehow.
And Babylon gets men drunk, dizzy with their opinions of themselves.
causing them to expose their nakedness, their evil, their
sin, that which ought to be their shade. Religion everywhere functions
like this. Everywhere, everywhere. You come
up here and confess your sin to us. That's why men want you
to do that. I know why, because they like
to revel in it. and they'd like to hold it over
you. And they find out something, now listen, listen, God's going
to expose your sin. You better be careful. And they
use this notion of the exposing of man's nakedness to keep folks
in line. They build an altar of steps.
so that you climb your way up, and by climbing up the steps,
Exodus chapter 20, verses 20 through 24, you expose your nakedness. We worship on an altar of earth,
an altar of God's making, Christ Jesus the Lord. And we don't
gradually ascend up to the state of acceptance. We come to God
trusting his son and are found in a state of acceptance with
Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, one with him. And our nakedness is
covered. Covered. His blood is pictured in the
Old Testament like a lid on that table. a golden lid on which blood is
sprinkled, called atonement blood, the blood of covering. Oh, but
the blood of Jesus Christ washed away our sins. Oh, yes, don't
take it anywhere from that. But, oh, thank God for the covering
of His broken law. So that the Lord God looks not
on the iniquity of His people. Not only that, Brings his particle
home and he slays the calf prepared for him. And he says, he said,
bring hither the best robe. Bring hither the best robe, the
robe of my darling son, my firstborn son. Bring hither the robe of
perfect righteousness and put it on him. It's his. Cover up his nakedness. That
self-righteous brother of his comes along. He said, don't you
know he's wasted his substance with harlots all these years?
And his father said, look at the cover. Look at the robe on him. Look
at the robe on him. He was dead. Now he's alive.
And his nakedness is covered. And I've kissed him and received
him. Our Savior's name is Jehovah
Sekinu. the Lord our righteousness, and
so perfectly covered as our nakedness, our sin, and him, that our name
is called Jehovah's Echidna, the Lord our righteousness. Look
here in Habakkuk again, verse 16, Babylon, all false religions,
All free will works religion. The worship of Antichrist exposes
the foreskin of the uncircumcised idolater and reprobate. That is, it identifies who he
is. Thou art filled with shame for
glory. Drink thou also and let thy foreskin
be uncovered. Come on, drink of this cup. Drink
this wine of Babylon's fornications, this doctrine of self-salvation,
and show yourself to be the reprobate you are. Let your foreskin be
uncovered. The cup of the Lord's right hand
shall be turned unto thee, and shameful spewing shall be on
thy glory. But when God saves a sinner,
giving him faith in Jesus Christ the Lord, trusting Christ, identifies
the believing sinner as God's covenant child, circumcised in
the heart by God the Holy Spirit. We are the circumcision. I'm
one of Abraham's sons. How about you? We're the circumcision. I'm one of God's covenant people.
How about you? I'm saved by God's grace. How
about you? How do you know? We worship God in the spirit
and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh.
No confidence in the fact that I was raised in a godly house. No confidence in the fact that
my daddy, my grandfather, my great grandfather, far back as
I can find, were good, faithful preachers. No confidence in the
fact that I was raised in church and memorized scripture from
my youth up. No confidence in my goodness and my obedience.
No confidence in my uprightness and integrity. No confidence
in my religious knowledge. No confidence in my experience.
No confidence in my prayers. No confidence in my devotion
to Christ. No confidence in this flesh! What's your hope? Jesus Christ crucified. That's all. My only hope, my
only plea is that Christ died and died for me. That's all.
That's all. One last thing. Babylon. All false religion. All free will works religion. is a teacher of lies, causing
men to trust the works of their own hands. Look at verse 18.
What profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven
it, the molten image and the teacher of lies, that the maker
of his work trusteth therein to make dumb idols. Woe unto
him that saith to the wood, awake to the dumb stone arise it shall
teach. Woe to him who prayeth to a God
that cannot say. Babylon, all Babylon's religion
teaches and promotes and defends the devil's lie. And the devil's
lie is that God tries to do what he doesn't get done. That God
wants to do what he never gets accomplished. That God desires
what he never has. That God wants to save multitudes
who yet perish in their sins. The gospel of God is truth. And the preaching of the gospel
is the proclamation of truth. It is the declaration of truth. The preaching of the gospel is
not encouraging people to do something. That's not it. That's not it.
Preaching the gospel is not giving good advice. Preaching the gospel
is not giving an opportunity for sinners to get saved. Preaching
the gospel is not offering men something. Preaching the gospel
is the announcement of good news. It's the proclamation of divine
truth. It's the declaration of something
accomplished. Turn back to Isaiah chapter 52.
Isaiah 52. How beautiful, verse 7. upon the mountains are the feet
of him that bringeth good tidings, that publishes peace, that bringeth
good tidings of good, that publishes salvation, that saith unto Zion,
thy God reigneth. Thy watchman shall lift up the
voice, with the voice together shall they sing, for they shall
see eye to eye. Sunday morning, you're going
to hear Brother Ron Wood and Brother Lindsey Campbell here. Sunday night,
you're going to hear Brother Frank Hall here, Lord willing.
Brother Joe and his wife went over last week and heard Todd
Nybert preach. Come September, you're going to hear eight preachers
from different parts of the world come here and preach the gospel
to you. And you know what you're going to hear? You know what
you're going to hear? Exactly what you've been hearing
for the last 32 years, three times a week from this pulpit.
Exactly the same thing. How come? Because we all see
eye to eye. You mean you tell fellas what
to preach? No! No! If I thought I had to tell them
what to preach, I wouldn't have them. They see eye to eye. They believe
the gospel of God's free grace. Read on. They see eye to eye. They declare the Lord God, our
Savior, He's God who reigns. Look at verse 9. Break forth
into joy. Sing together, ye waste places
of Jerusalem. For the Lord hath comforted his
people. He hath redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord hath made bare his holy
arm in the eyes of all the nations. And all the ends of the earth
shall see the salvation of our God. Sue. Sue. everybody gonna see these
things. Those who are saved and those
who are damned. Well, what then shall we do?
What shall we do with Babylon? How shall we deal with false
religion? Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from her, touch no
unclean thing, Go ye out of the midst of her, be ye clean that
bear the vessels of the Lord. Amen.

What's Wrong With My Religion?

What does the Bible say about false religion?

How do we know God's judgment on false religion is true?

Why is salvation through grace important for Christians?

What is the character of false religions according to the Bible?

How should Christians respond to false religion?

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What's Wrong With My Religion?

What does the Bible say about false religion?

How do we know God's judgment on false religion is true?

Why is salvation through grace important for Christians?

What is the character of false religions according to the Bible?

How should Christians respond to false religion?

Sermon Transcript

About Don Fortner

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