It's just a joy to be here. I love this church. I remember
when I was young, we used to, I went with a friend of mine
to a church out in the country, and I always enjoyed the ride. And someone asked me if your
church was out in the country. I said, well, it's so far in
the country, you got to go towards town to go hunting. That's pretty
far. But that's all right. I was all weekend trying to think
of a particular illustration that I heard one time. There
was a brother by the name of Dusty Rhodes that Don knew well. And I finally thought of it this
morning. And it has to do with things
absolute. Our gospel is a gospel of absolute,
isn't it? It's, there's no chance, it's
by purpose, by God's purpose, it's an absolute gospel. And one time, Mr. Rhodes, Dusty Rhodes, asked
a fellow, he said, do you believe in absolutes? He said, not at
all. I don't believe. He said, you
don't believe in absolutes. And he said, no, I don't believe
in absolutes. And he said, are you sure you
don't believe in absolutes? And he said, absolutely. I've
been trying to think of that all weekend. And I say that,
though, to say that we preach a gospel of absolute. God is sovereign. God's on the
throne. God saves sinners by His sovereign
grace in Christ. It's not by works of righteousness
that I've done, but by His mercy and by His grace that I come
unto Christ. And this morning as my text,
I would like to ask you to turn to the Gospel of Matthew. chapter
21, Matthew chapter 21. And I would encourage you, and
I'm sure that you have, but I would encourage you in your spare time
to read this whole chapter. It's just a marvelous, marvelous
chapter and there again shows the absolutes. of the scripture. I wish we had time to look at
the whole chapter, but for the sake of time, let me just set
up this marvelous story for you. Our Lord had sent two of his
disciples to Bethphagia. which was just a little, what
we call, suburb. I know there in Houston, when
you get close to town, you can't hardly tell when you're leaving
one and going into another. And Bethpagee was just a little
town on the outer walls of Jerusalem. And he told them when they got
there that they would find an ass and a colt, and to loose
them and bring them to Him. He said, if anyone says anything
to you or asks you what you're doing, you just simply say, the
Lord has need of them, according to verse 3. And then in verse
4, we see that this was fulfilled, which was spoken by the prophet
Isaiah in chapter 62. Say ye to the daughter of Zion,
behold, thy salvation cometh. Behold, his reward is with him
and his work before him. And in verse five it says, tell
you the daughter of Zion, behold, thy king cometh unto thee. But
notice how he comes. He comes meek and sitting upon
an ass and a coat, the foal. of an ass. This also fulfilled
the prophecy written in Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9, which says,
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, thy King cometh! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, thy King cometh unto thee! He is just and having salvation. Where's salvation? It's in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And he comes lowly and riding
upon an ass and upon a colt, the foal of an ass. And this
shows us plainly the King of kings and the Lord of lords,
the King Messiah's triumphant entry into the city. And yet he's lowly and meek and
comes in humility. The disciples went and did as
the Lord commanded, and they brought the ass and the coat
to Him, and they put their clothes upon Him for Him to ride upon.
And in verses eight and nine, we see our Lord entered into
the city, and all those that were before Him and behind Him
and around Him cried, Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed
is He that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. Now calling him Hosanna, the
son of David, was a declaration from them that this was the Messiah. This was the Savior of God's
people. Blessed is he that cometh. Oh,
this is the Messiah. This is the Savior. This is the
Deliverer. This is the Rescuer. This is
the Preserver. This is the Defender. Salvation
isn't a person, dear friends, and He is salvation. In verse 10, we're told, upon
seeing these things, all the city, it says, all the city of
Jerusalem was moved and said, who is this? Who is this? Now, I ask those of you who are
yet without Christ, do you see who this is? This is the most important question
that you'll ever be asked. Who is this? What think ye of
Christ? Whose son is he? Oh, matters
of life and death. Matters of life and death. Who
is this? Well, was he just a good man?
Or was he the God-man? Was he just a carpenter? Joseph's son or was he the one
who created all the trees from which the wood came? Was he what
men call today's faith healers or was he the great physician? I pray that God may give you
eyes to see, you who are yet without Christ, eyes to see Him
and who He is. Who is this? Who is this? The answer given to the question
in verse 11, though in one sense it's correct, it was still wrong. Because look, they said in verse
11, the multitudes said, this is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth,
of Galilee. And he was, but he was much more
than that. He was much more than just a
prophet out of Nazareth. And if you don't ever see more
than that, my friends, you'll never have the salvation that
God provides in him. And Peter, by divine inspiration
said, He said, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. Eternity will prove that this
is the most important question ever asked, who is he? And only
God can reveal the answer to you. Then our story takes a turn. Our Lord goes into the temple
only to see a thriving business of religion. Look at verses 12
and 13, and Jesus went into the temple of God, and he cast out
all them that sold and bought in the temple, and he overthrew
the tables of the money changers and the seats of them that sold
doves. And he said unto them, it is written, my house shall
be called the house of prayer, but you've made it a den of thieves. That's what a lot of religion
is today, isn't it? It's just a thriving business
in the name of God. Just money changers. I heard
two men recently talking, just overheard them. They were talking
about going to church. This one fellow, I think he'd
been to every church in Houston but ours. He was talking about,
I went here last week. And then he said these words.
And I didn't know this. I'm surprised. But he said, I
went to a church last week that had an ATM machine in the lobby. And he was serious. And I found
out later that there are churches that do. When are you going to
get yours, Brother Darwin? Right away. The money changers. Thieves. Men harp again and again
on giving the church your money. As Brother Don so eloquently
said yesterday, God saves your heart, He gets your pocketbook.
You'll give. Giving is as much a part of worship
as singing and preaching. You're going to give. Nobody's
going to have to entice you, beg you, shame you. You'll give. But men harp and
harp and harp on, well, this is the best business deal around.
You give 10, got to give back 100. You give 100, got to give
1,000. Well, who wouldn't want that deal? But it's lies, money
changers, thieves. I had a man also say to me one
Sunday afternoon. We had a pretty good group at
church that day. The parking lot was full. And he said to
me, knowing that I was the pastor there, he said, boy, it looked
like business was good today. Friends, if our church is no
more than a business, then we'd better close. We'd better go
out of business. We'd better go out of business.
Christ said this is a house of prayer, not a den of thieves. Men talk about their ministries.
their numbers with pride and arrogance. Let me tell you something. Pastoring that church in New
Caney, that's not my ministry. That's God's ministry. That's
Christ's ministry. Your pastor's name ain't Reverend
Darvin. Mine ain't Reverend David. And
I suppose if there was anybody that ought to be called a doctor,
this man here, he's forgotten more of the gospel than most
so-called doctors have ever heard. But we're not promoting ourselves.
No, it's not Dr. Darwin, Reverend Darwin, Reverend
David, Reverend Don. There's nothing reverend about
us. We're sinners saved by grace. We're unprofitable servants called
to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. Nothing special about
us. Nothing reverent about us. Nothing
reverent. Nothing about me that's worthy
of reverence, I'll tell you that. Just unprofitable servants saved
by grace. The reason God calls us unprofitable
servants is because it's God that profits sinners. We plant,
we water, God gives the increase. God gives the profit, God gives
the gain. Well, let me tell you what, show
you what Christ thought about this thriving business of religion.
Verse 12, he cast out all of them. And notice this, he cast
out the ones that sold and the ones that bought. Don't buy into this business
of religion. God will cast you out. When you
buy in, you're just as guilty as those who sell it. Now let
me show you something amazing. This is an amazing gospel, isn't
it? This is an amazing grace. This is an amazing Savior. After Christ had knocked over
those tables, cast them all out, the money changers and knocked
over the seats of the sellers, look what he did. In verse 14,
and the blind and the lame came to him in the temple and he healed
them. Oh, we see the righteous indignation
of Christ. only to be followed by compassion
and mercy. What a contrast. God's angry
with the wicked every day, the Scriptures say. But to the sick
and the needy, He delights, delights to show mercy. Well, is God angry
with you? You're wicked. by nature and
by practice and thought and indeed. Your heart is deceitful above
all things. And it's desperately wicked.
And only God can know it. Who shall know it? Only God knows
it. So is God angry with you? He's not if you're in Christ. He's not if you're in Christ. The Old Testament Scriptures
tell us about Noah. It said, first and foremost,
Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. He had him build
an ark. Now let me ask you, that ark
that Noah and his family went into, God's wrath fell on them
too. But they were in that ark. They were in that ark. Let me
ask you, are you a mercy beggar? I love that term. You know what?
You can't say anything to a child of God, no matter how bad it
might be, and they'll just sit there and go, yeah, that's right.
I'm a mercy bearer. I'm a sinner. And they're serious. I'm not a sinner in name only. I'm a sinner. Sinner, that's
why I sin. I'm not a sinner because I sin.
Sin is what I am. I can't find Brother Don, I can't
find anywhere in the Bible where a man or woman came to Christ
falling at His feet, begging for His mercy that didn't receive
mercy. Do you know a place? Would you
show me where it is? I can't find it anywhere. I know this. I think of that old leper. That's
one of my favorite stories in scripture, in Matthew 8. I can
just see him. You know, they supposed to, when
they walked, you know, first of all, they wasn't even supposed
to be around people that were clean, but they had to cry out,
unclean, unclean! And I can just see him and hear
him as he goes through the crowd. He's headed one place and one
place only. That's to the feet of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And I can just see him as he
trembles, as he walks through that crowd. And can't you just
hear him murmuring? What's he doing here? He's a
leper. Don't let him touch you. And he falls at the feet of Christ. And he said, Lord, if Thou will,
if You only will, You can make me clean. And our Lord Jesus
stretched forth his hand and touched him. Oh, he touched me. He touched me. He reached forth
his hand and touched him. And he said those words, I will
be thou clean. And immediately, immediately,
he was made clean. These folks in this temple, these
money changers, these sold doves, They were working. They were convinced that they
were doing God a service. I can bet you that. They were working. They were working for their righteousness. Well, are you in the temple working?
Doing business? Or have you come blind? lame,
seeking mercy. Have you come that you might
be healed by the great physician? If you have, then I got good
news for you. Christ came to save sinners. And every one of you that know
Christ will tell me And I'll tell you that you're the chief.
You'll say, oh, I'm the chief. That's about the only thing we'll
argue about, isn't it, who's the chief of sinners? No, brother,
I am. No, I am. How you come to Christ is the
difference between life and death. That rich young ruler, he came
in pride saying, what good thing must I do to be saved? Christ
said, I've done those since my youth. Then the Lord met him
where he was. He said, go and sell all you
have. Come follow me. He says he went away heartbroken. Went away sad. Salvation is not coming to the
temple. Salvation is coming to Christ who is the temple. Let me just show you real quick.
Turn over to Matthew 26. Matthew 26. Here we have our Lord before
the judgment, the pallet, those that had brought false witness
against Him, the chief priests and the elders. Verse 59, Matthew
26. Now the chief priest and elders
and all the council sought false witness against Jesus to put
him to death, but found none. Yea, though many false witnesses
came, yet found they none. Why, even Pilate said himself,
didn't he, I find no fault in this man. And at the last came two false
witnesses. Now, what do false witnesses
do? They tell lies. They wouldn't be a false witness
if they didn't. And look at what they said in verse 61. They said,
this fellow, pointing to Christ, they said, this fellow said,
I'm able to destroy the temple of God and to build it in three
days. Christ never said that. Never
did He say that. He never said the temple. He
said, I'm able to destroy this temple. That's what He said. You look it up. Referring to
His body, His human nature. His body was this temple in which
He, the Son of God, dwelt. And you know what? He did not
say that He was able to build it in three days. That's not
what He said. They just flat lied. He said
that he'd raise it up in three days. There again, speaking of
his body, the resurrection of his body by his own power after
it had been dead for three days. Christ is God's temple and we
must come to him to be saved. These blind and lame folks, they
came to Him in the temple. Verse 14. All right, back in
our text, and I'll finish this up. In verse 15, chapter 21. And when the chief priest and
scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, And they saw the
children crying in the temple and saying, Hosanna to the son
of David. Oh, what a blessing this was
to see such a thing. But look at those next words.
They were sore displeased. And Jesus said unto, and they
said unto Jesus, I'm sorry, do you hear what they say? Do you hear what they're saying? And Jesus said unto them, and
I've read this so many times, oh, the simplicity of it when
God showed. You know what Christ said? Yeah.
Yeah. Have you never read out of the
mouth of babes and sucklings? Thou hast perfected praise. And then look at verse 17. And
he left them. He went out of the city into
Bethany and lodged there. Those have to be some of the
saddest words ever written in Scripture. And he left them. I'm convinced that the only sin
that cannot be forgiven is the sin of unbelief. Christ left
them because of their unbelief. When they saw what He did and
heard what the people said about Him, they were sore displeased. They were angry. They were mad.
There wasn't any rejoicing going on. Here stood God in the flesh. able to save all those that come
to Him. And what were they? So displeased. I can just hear them, can't you?
All these pious religious men and their big robes stuffed with
prayers and their haughty attitude and they're going, looking at
the Son of God in the flesh and going, do you hear what they're
saying? Do you hear them? Well, I can
just see them. I could just see him. And our
Lord said, yeah, I hear him. I heard them and what they say
is true. Didn't you ever read in the scriptures that out of
the mouth of babes and sucklings now is perfected praise? This
is perfect praise. Hosanna, son of David. Hosanna in the highest. But He left them. Now I suppose
that if we leave Him, there's still hope. For like the prodigal
son, we might come to our senses by His grace in return. But when I consider those words,
and He left them, oh my! The only one who can save me,
from their sin and reconcile them to God left them. Now there was a time I didn't
know him. But the issue even then was not that I did not know
him. You know what the issue was?
That he knew me. That's right. And sovereign grace
and mercy, his knowing me is what made the difference. There were some that stood on
that day. In Matthew 7 it says, you'll say to me on that day,
Lord, Lord, haven't we prophesied in your name? And in your name
have we cast out devils? And in thy name done many, many
wonderful works. And he said, I'm going to profess
unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work
iniquity. He said in John 6 that we looked
at Friday evening, or yesterday. He said, there are some of you
that believe not. Jesus knew from the beginning who they were
that believed not and who should betray Him. And He said, therefore
I said unto you that no man can come. He made that very clear,
didn't He? You don't have the ability to
come. We looked at that in detail. No man can come except They were
given unto Him of my Father. And the Scriptures say from that
time many of His disciples went back and walked no more with
Him. What had He told them? He said,
Your works of righteousness won't get it done. No man can come. You don't have the ability to
come to Him. Salvation is of God, dear friends. Why do men
fight against that? It strips them of all the glory.
That's one reason, main reason, isn't it? And Jesus said to the
12, will you go away too? I can just see them standing
there. You gonna go away too? And old
Peter, gotta love old Peter, he said, Lord, to whom shall
we go? Where we gonna go? No other place. That's right. I'm not talking about us leaving
Him, for in the sovereign grace and power of our Lord, He can
easily return those who are prone to wander. But it's another thing,
quite another thing, for Christ to leave us. How long will He
endure with the unbelievers? To those of you that are still
without Christ, and you know who you are, I ask you, how long? Will Christ always suffer your
obstinate and determined hatred of Him? Well, I know this, Elijah
one day in 1 Kings came unto all the people and he said, how
long halt ye between two opinions? How long? If the Lord be God,
follow Him. But if Baal, then follow him."
And the people answered him not a word. Psalm 42, oh you sons
of men, how long will you turn my glory into shame? How long
will you love vanity and seek after Lisey? Psalm 74, 10, oh
God, how long shall the adversary reproach? Shall the enemy blaspheme
thy name forever? Proverbs 6, 9. How long wilt
thou sleep, O sluggard? When wilt thou rise out of thy
sleep? I'll tell you this much. When
it pleases God, who's ever resisted His will? Who's ever said unto
Him, what are you doing? When it pleases God, his brother
Caleb wrote, Well, we see in reading the following
verses that our Lord lodged in Bethany. He returned the next
morning and He was hungry and He saw a fig tree and it didn't
have anything on it and He cursed it and it withered away. Now,
this is the main thing I want to get across to you this morning
and that is the authority of Christ. You're going to bow to His authority
or you're going to perish. He's God. You'll never be saved
until you bow and beg. Bow and beg. Mercy beckers. In verse 23, we see that that
was the chief issue with the chief priest and the elders. Look at verse 23 with me. was
coming to the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the
people came unto him as he was teaching and said, by what authority
doest thou these things? And who gave thee this authority?
And Jesus answered and said unto them, I will ask you one thing. Which, if ye tell me, I likewise
will tell you by what authority I do these things. And here was
his question. He said, the baptism of John,
whence was it? Was it from heaven or was it
of men? And it says they reasoned within
themselves, saying, well, if we say from heaven, he's going
to say unto us, then why didn't you believe him? And if we say
of men, well, we fear the people for all of them hold John as
a prophet. These folks around these parts,
they love John. Men always get in trouble when
they reason within themselves. And here they come interrupting,
Christ is in the temple teaching. Here they come interrupting him
and asking him, by what authority and whose authority do you do
these things? Well, I tell you what, they were
still upset about him breaking up their little private enterprise. He'd messed up a good thing. You know that God messed up what
I thought, once thought was a good thing? My works of righteousness, He
messed that all up. And by His mercy and grace, I
saw that Christ was my righteousness. Not by works of righteousness
that I had done. No siree. There's none righteous, not a
one. And if you notice here, our Lord
never gave an account for them. He answered their question by
asking them one, does that not demonstrate His authority? He
owes no man an explanation. You see friends, sinful man can't
put God on trial. Now, how many of you fathers
or even mothers here have told your children to do something
and they ask that age-old question, why? Oh, man, they'll wear you
out with why's, won't they? And how many of you have said
what I've said? Because I said so. Because I said so. His authority is just this, because
I said so. He's God. He said in Matthew
20, is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil because I'm
good? He's the potter. We're the clay. There's one mediator between
God and men, the man, Christ Jesus. And here our Lord takes
the situation over. Now listen, He's never taken
over. He always takes over. Here Christ is in the temple
teaching, and here come these disgruntled religionists, and
they come, and you know what He does, brother Doc? He just
keeps right on teaching. Just keeps right on teaching.
He says, Was the baptism of John from heaven or men? What did
John preach? What did John preach? He said,
repent, repent. He preached repentance, didn't
he? Repent was his cry. Repent, be baptized. Oh my, these folks, they could
do nothing. You know, after they got their
game plan together, you know, men like to get them, they reason
within themselves, they got a game plan together. Do you know what
was the best game plan they could come up with? pleading ignorant. That was it. We cannot tell. We cannot tell. Oh, my friends, John's authority
was from heaven, and Christ's authority as God was from heaven. Our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever He hath
All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing, and he
doeth according to his will in the army of heaven and among
the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand, or
say unto him, what doest thou? Now I say this once again in
closing to those of you that are still without Christ. I want
to ask you, what and who are you that God would be mindful
of you? The answer to that question is
you're nothing. I'm nothing. We're nothing. We're all deserving of hell and
eternal damnation. But that's the very thing that
makes grace, grace. That's the very thing that makes
mercy, mercy. It's undeserved. It's unmerited
love and favor. It's God not giving us what we
deserve and giving us what we don't deserve. That's the only
message. That's the only message. Only
Christ has the authority to give it. Well, how did I know that I'm
one of His? Our Lord said, all that the Father giveth me shall
come to me. All the Father giveth me shall
come to me. Come, repent. Change your mind
about who you are and who God is and how He saves. Serve Him the rest of your days. And remember that you can't even
do that. unless God accept the Father
who sent me. Drop Him. He alone has all the
power and all the authority. Amen.