Now if you'll turn back to Genesis
chapter 30, I don't really know what I'm
going to title this message. Titles is something that I play
around with all the time because sometimes titles is what gets
a message listened to. And I just wait to see what it
is exactly the Lord's going to give me some liberty with and
sometimes that's what I put on the title. But I began titling
this message, Peeling Away the Bark, because that's what he's
talking about when he talked about Jacob cutting those strakes
in that pole. Now I would remind you again
as we take up our study here of Jacob, that both he and his
wives and their children are used of God not only in the natural
sense, being in the lineage of Christ and not only in the spiritual
sense of which they stood and believed as believers walked
in this world, preached his gospel to men, but they also stood and
God used them as pictures and illustrations of how God saved
sinners. In Hosea, I've been giving you
different references throughout the New Testament. I'm going
to give you one in the Old Testament tonight. In Hosea chapter 12
and verse 10, the Lord said this to his church. He said, I have
also spoken by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions
and used similitudes. See that word? Similitudes by
the ministry of the prophets. I use things similar to teach
you. That's what he's saying. That's
what that word means. The Lord lays for us in the Old Testament
Scriptures many types and figures which illustrate to us what's
taking place and what is taking place in our day. And I'm not
now talking so much about future events or current events,
but I'm talking about Christ and the purpose of God and that
glorious work to redeem a people for the glory of His name. Now
we've looked at Abraham as the father of faith. We've looked
at Sarah as a picture of the church. Waiting upon the promised
son. Everything. Relying on this son. Everything. To Abraham and his
seed were the promises made. Isaac. A clear picture. Both Christ and the church. And
his wife, Rebecca, who receives the word of God in the election
of one of her sons. And God establishes his election
within his church. And then Jacob, as an even clearer
type of Christ in his church, producing the sons whose names
are forever, on the high priest of Israel, on his breastplate
and over his heart, were written the names of his children. You
think about that. On his shoulder were written
these twelve names of Jacob's children, the children of Israel.
All through the scripture, he talks about Jacob, in Jacob,
in Jacob, over and over and over. He talks about his church and
refers to them as the children of Israel, the children of Jacob.
And even over in the book of Revelations, when John had that
revelation out on the isle, he looked into glory. Before he saw that multitude
that no man could number, he saw 144,000, and he saw these
12 sons. and their offspring. That's who
he saw. And what he saw then became that
vision of a number that no man can number. And we looked last
week at his two wives, Leah and Rachel, and saw how they revealed
the church and its different dispensations. There was a dispensation
when his church was revealed within natural Israel. All Israel
is not Israel. You go through the Old Testament,
and you wonder, well, how could a child of God do that? Or why
would a child of God? Everybody's not a child of God
that was in natural Israel. But within that nation, there
was a remnant according to the election of grace. That's what
Paul said. And when I'm talking about a
dispensation, that's what I'm talking about. During that age,
When God was pleased to reveal himself to men and call out his
children and assemble them together, they were assembled within this
nation. And among that people, he had a people. He delivered,
I don't know how many out of Egypt. No man seems to have a
correct number. They all speculate that it was
in the millions. But ever how many it was, there's
only two of them went into promised land that came out of Egypt.
The rest of them that went in were born in the wilderness.
All those who come out of Egypt died. Their carcasses fell in
the wilderness. And within natural Israel, the
nation was a remnant according to the election of grace. And
he established this with Rebekah and established this in Jacob.
But then her true identity was more clearly revealed in Leah,
whom I affectionately call the ugly sister. She was despised and unwanted
and hated of Rachel. Leah was blessed of God to produce
three quarters, between her and her handmaid, three quarters
of the children of Israel came from Leah. You think about that.
But in reality, both Jews and Gentiles, they were all under
sin. That's what Paul said. The Jews had a great advantage,
just like Rachel with her beauty. She had a great advantage over
Leah. And he tells us that at the end of Romans chapter 2.
He said, what advantage? Well, they had all kinds of advantages.
They had the Word of God. They had the prophets. They had
the priesthood. They had the pictures. They had
it all. And then he gets down and he
said, what then? Are we better than they, talking
about the Gentiles? He said, no, and no wise, because
I before proved that all are under sin. Old Lee and Rachel. And these two women also stand
for that experience of grace in all believers. You know, we
see that beauty. A man comes to see beauty in
doing good. He comes to see beauty in a reformed
life. He comes to want that and strive
for that and so on and so on. But before he can obtain that,
he has to embrace the ugly sister. He has to embrace what he is.
First, having embraced that, he embraces Christ, and he has
those things in Christ, which he desires. Now tonight I want
us to go a step further into this revelation given to us of
Jacob, and look at how one so often betrayed as Jacob. This man, when he told Jacob,
he said, what would you have me give you? Every time he promised
to give Jacob something, he didn't give it to him. He lied to him
every time. Every single time. He was careful
how he worded it. He went in there and told Laban,
he said, now I want Rachel. How long do I have to serve?
He said, seven years. When you serve seven years, you
got to leave. He served for cattle. He didn't get cattle. Ten times
he said, you've lied to me. Ten times he told me. I want
us to look into this revelation given to us of Jacob and look
at how one so often betrayed is raised up in power and dignity
and takes from Laban the things which he by lies and deceit had
long before taken from Jacob. God gives them back to him. Laban
and most of the men of that country, I believe, knew something of
the wealth and power of Abraham. He goes on in these chapters
here to mention, he told him, he said, If it weren't for the
fear of Abraham, if you didn't fear my grandfather Abraham and
my father Isaac, he said, you left me with nothing. That's
what he told this man. So I think it's safe to say that
Laban and most all the men of that country knew something of
the wealth and power of Abraham. They'd heard the tales of how
he went down there and defeated those kings. And they feared
him. And both Sarah and Rebecca had
been giving them to wife and his name. And no doubt, they
were well known in that country. That's where Sarah come from,
Abraham's wife. That's where Abraham come from.
That's where Rebecca come from. And now here's Jacob. And he's down here in the same.
And they all came from the same house, from the house of Naho. And not only that, but Laban
was Rebecca's brother. But Laban was a selfish man,
a greedy man, and when Jacob came into that land
and he found out who he was, all Laban saw was dollar signs. That's what he saw. I'm going
to befriend this guy, and I'm going to get hooked up with him,
and I'll be a partaker of Abraham's inheritance and Isaac's. And
so he married off not one, but both of his daughters to him.
I think that's what was behind Leah. I think he knew that Jacob
would serve and do whatever he had to do to have Rachel, but
he also pawned Leah off on it. And the Lord blessed Laban. Laban,
I read to you a few minutes ago where Laban said, I've learned
this by experience. He said, I've come to know this
by experience. I knew this in my head, but now
I know it by experience that the Lord has blessed me because
of you, and I don't want you to go. That was his goose that
was laying the golden eggs. He didn't want him to go anywhere. He was profiting by this man.
He didn't have nothing. That's what Jacob told him. When
I come, you didn't have nothing. Now you've got multitudes of
cattle. You've got all these things. And he didn't share Jacob's knowledge
of God. He didn't see himself included
in Abraham's covenant promises. All he did was realize that Jacob
brought prosperity to his house and he didn't want to let him
leave. But Jacob had been in his house, now listen to me,
for 20 years. That's a long time. That's a
long time. And he served this man faithfully
for 20 years, and he had nothing. Nothing. Boy, is that or is that
not a picture of us born in Adam? We just labor and labor and labor,
and that old man just promises and promises and promises, and
we just go on laboring and chasing after it. You ever watch the
Little Rascals years ago, and they had a little cart, and they
had this little that was out in front of it, and when they
wanted the goat to pull the cart, they'd take a stick with a carrot
on it and hang it down there and that goat would chase that
carrot and pull that cart. That's what the businessmen called
chasing the carrot. And so that's what he did. He had old Jacob, and that's
what we do. We chase after that carrot and
pull the wagon the whole way. Old man just gets his way. But
Jacob would come to realize after 20 years, Now he was getting
nowhere. Listen to this, Genesis 31, 41.
He said, I've been in thy house twenty years. Twenty years. I've served you fourteen years
for thy two daughters and six years for thy cattle. And you've
changed my wages ten times. In other words, you've promised
me this. And when it come time to pay up, you found something
else. 10 times, he said. Now, I'm going
to tell you, there's something to these numbers. I'm not going
to get into it tonight, but that number 10, that's how many times
Israel sinned against God. He said there wasn't going to
be a number 11. Now, you went too far. This is what Jacob's
telling him. You went too far. You went too
far. Except the God of my father,
the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac had been with me, surely
thou had sent me away empty. But God has seen my affliction,
and the labor of my hands, and rebuked thee yesternight." He
kept you from doing what you thought to do. Now, I see Laban
as the old father of lies. That's who I see in Laban. It's not necessarily in his person,
but it's in persons through whom Satan works. This is what I want
you to see. He works through men and women.
It's not so much that demon spirits whisper in your ear in the night.
It's that he works in the hearts. He knows how to tempt. He knows
how to deceive. He knows how to... I can't even explain how spirits
work except they They cause you to chase after things and to
run after things and to lust after things and to see things
wrong and lay these lies. And they work with men and cause
their ministers, Paul calls them, his ministers to appear as ministers
of righteousness. He's talking about men. I brought
a message several years ago entitled, What Possesses a Man Becomes
the Man. And that's how Satan operates.
He gets in us. And through us, he operates.
And that's what was going on in old Laban. That's why I see
him as the father of lives. He pretended to be a loving father.
He pretended to be a generous friend. He pretended to be a
kind and understanding companion. But all along, he had his own
glory and interest in mind. All along. All along. He already
had the answers figured out before Jacob figured out the questions.
He already had the answers. He knew Jacob wasn't going to
have Leah. He knew he was going to raise a fuss and be mad about
it after seven years of labor. He said, oh, that's a tradition. That's the law of the land. You
don't want me to go against the law of the land. You don't want
me to be a transgressor. Surely, man, God wouldn't want
me to be a transgressor. That's how Satan operates. Satan
operates with lies. In Genesis 31, verse 4, Jacob
sent for his two wives. He called him out into the field,
out of the tent, away from the ears of the servants and the
maidservants and all them. He called him out to himself
out in the field. He said, I want to talk to you. He got Lee and
Rachel both out there. He said in verse 6, And you know
with all my power I have served your father, and your father
hath deceived me, and changed my wages ten times. But God kept
him from hurting me. God suffered him not to hurt
me. And then he told them how God had warned him in a vision
and showed him what to do and told him the truth about his
father-in-law. And he told them that God had instructed him to
leave their father's house and go back to this land where he
was supposed to be. And that He was going to give
him back everything that old Laban had stolen from him. Verse
14. And Rachel and Leah answered
and said unto him, Is there yet any portion of inheritance for
us in our father's house? Not going to be anything. Are
we not counted to him as strangers? For he sold us, and hath quite
devoured also our money, and all the riches which God hath
taken from our father that is ours and our children's, and
now them whatsoever God said to thee to do, You go do it.
You go do it. We're with you. We agree with
you. Our Father, He is a liar. He's
a liar. Now, here's what I want you to
see. That Father of the Bride of Christ is a liar. Now, I'm
not talking about our Heavenly Father. I'm talking about our
Father Adam. And you can look at it either
as our Father Adam or you can look at it as the old man of
sin, Satan. Our Lord told those Pharisees,
He said, you are of your father, the devil. That's what He told
them. But the same thing is true of
Adam. We're of our father. He was a liar. He was a liar
in the beginning. He lied to God. He said, that
woman you gave me caused me to do that. The father of the bride of Christ
is a liar. And whether you consider him
to be Adam or Satan, either one, There's really no difference
because Satan is who caused Adam to do what he did. That's who
caused him. That's who causes men. He just,
he's everywhere. He works in such a deceitful
way and causes things to come about that apart from an intervention
of God, we just swallow it up. There is no, I'm telling you,
there is no resistance apart from Christ. There's just no
resistance. He has his way. It says in the Bible that he
takes men captive at his will, at his will. Every child of God, when he's
enlightened to see the truth, says with Paul the Apostle, let
God be true and every man a liar, every man. Now what he reveals
in these two wives who represent the whole house of Israel, He
illustrates now in how God reclaims what was taken away from Jacob.
He's going to illustrate this. Now, let me briefly just give
you a couple things tonight. I don't know if I can get to
the third thing, but I'll give you as much as I can on these
two. I want to give you two things concerning this inheritance of
Jacob and how it came to be. Now, first of all, it was clearly
described in the covenant that he made with Laban. He said,
now here's what we're going to do. I read it to you a few minutes
ago. And you're just going to have
to accept my word the same as I accepted those that I read
on this thing, because I don't know anything at all about Far
Eastern cattle and sheep and goats. You could write it all
on a little piece of paper in a sentence, what I know about
it. I'm just taking these historians and people at their word. They
say that those sheep and those goats and those cattle were all
solid colored. They were all solid colored.
And the spotted and the speckled among them was a sign of impure
breeding. That's what it was. And so when
Jacob walks through there with Laban, he's baiting him. Now
Jacob's walking and talking in the wisdom of God to old Laban.
And Laban still sees himself head and shoulders above Jacob,
he's gonna set him up. And so he said, well, you just
name your mount, you, whatever. And he said, no, he said, I don't
want you to give me nothing. I want you to give me nothing.
This agreement here, what I'm gonna do, is gonna rest in the
hands of God. And I'm gonna walk through here
and I'm gonna pick from the minority. I'm gonna pick the spotted. Now
the difference between spotted and speckled, they tell me, is
spotted means it's got a big patch on it. Speckled means like
on a goat where it's kind of freckled. That's the difference. Grizzled, if you've ever dealt
with horses much, you know what grizzled means and all these
terms that they used here. But in this thing, he walked
through this the flocks and herds of Laban and he pulled them out. He pulled them out and he set
them aside and he said, now here's what I'm talking about. See this
goat? See these specks on it? See his cattle here with the
spots on it? This is what I'm talking about.
Everyone that's born in your herds and in your flocks from
now on that look like this, they're going to be mine. That'll be
my inheritance. All the rest of them you can keep. Well, man,
Laban had 99 white sheep and one brown one, you know, and
he had, here's 150 goats out here, and they're all white.
Oh, here's one that had some spots on it. So Laban said, whatever,
you know, yeah, I agree with whatever you, you just write
it down, whatever it is you want, and I'll sign it. That's what
he basically was telling me. And these things, but he, I want
to deal with this first. He told him, he said, now I don't
want, you're not going to give me anything. Whatever is going
to be given to me, God is going to give it to me. I don't want
anything you've got. Every time you promise something
to me, you lie to me. And if it wasn't for the fear
of God in your heart and the fear of my father and my grandfather,
you'd have left me penniless by the road and took your daughters
back. I wouldn't have had nothing. So this thing ain't going to
be relying on you, and it ain't going to be relying on me. We're
going to set it in the hands of God. Whatever he gives me,
that will be my inheritance. And that's what I want you to
see. When we're talking about salvation and talking about the
things of God, we're talking about a covenant of grace. A
covenant of grace. Everything that comes the way
of the sinner, we can find all kind of intermediate things in
the middle, but I'm telling you up front, it's a covenant of
grace. It's given to you. Everything's given to you. Of God, He was made unto us. Ain't that what it says? Wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. God so loved the world that he
gave his only begotten son. He gives us the gospel. He's
saying preachers can't go anywhere. Where could I go? I wouldn't
know where to start. I'd just be wandering up and
down the streets like these idiots down there, just yelling in the
air and holding up signs, passers-by. I wouldn't know. How shall he
preach except he'd be sent? They have to be given. Churches
have to be given. They have to be raised up of
God. The gospel I preach has to be empowered. I've got no
power. My words got no power. I could
transcribe these things and hand them out and pass them out and
we'd just all read it together and it wouldn't make a bit of
sense to you. It has to be given. Given. Everything's given. Providence
is given to you. Old Abin, he recognized some
of that, but not all of it. But to enter into any kind of
understanding of what's going on, we need to understand All
of these things were minorities, and that this covenant was made
was all in the hands of God. And they got them some witnesses
together. Everybody witnessed what was
said, and they said, well, that's the way it's going to be. And
old Laban convinced again that he held the upper hand, agreed
to everything, and all that was born of color, the brown in the
sheep, or black, or off-colored, the speckled, spotted, ring strength,
they'd be given to Jacob. But all that were purebred, all
that looked pure, they were going to be Laban's. Now I'm telling you, in the earliest
mentions of the everlasting covenant of God, the covenant of grace,
it's presented as a covenant of grace for the salvation of
sinners. that you can't find a mention
of the covenant of grace that it don't have direct reference
to sinners. This covenant up front talked
about spotted, speckled, ring-striped. He's talking about sinners. Sinners. David said it was made in order
and all things in sure. And he said it's all my salvation. Well, you don't need saved if
you're not a sinner, do you? Huh? That everlasting covenant
of grace is ordered in all things, ensured for sinners. From the earliest days in the
garden, God's elect are all pictured as fallen, depraved sinners.
There was blood shed in the garden for sin, to cover their nakedness. There was blood shed by the lamb
on Abel's altar. Blood shed every time the old
saints gathered together to worship God. And when God gave His holy
law and His just demands to Jacob's sons, He also gave them a priesthood,
a mercy seat, and a bloody sacrifice. It's for sinners. For sinners. This inheritance of Jacob had
to do with a revelation of impurity and sin. And then the second
thing I want you to see here is what Jacob did to produce
and set apart his inheritance. He took these limbs off of some
trees. Now, it mentions here three particular
trees. It says the poplar tree, a hazelnut
tree, and a chestnut tree. I have no idea what that means.
But I do know a little bit about trees, and I know this about
these three trees. The poplar tree has a flower.
Now y'all don't have poplar trees around here, I don't guess, but
up north in Kentucky, they flourish up there. We call them tulip
poplars. They have a bloom on them about
this big around. Gorgeous big flower on that tree. And it's just a beautiful thing.
When they get old and big and they're all up there just mammoth
in size and it's just covered with those big blooms on them
tulip poplars. And then the hazelnut tree, it's
good for food, I know that. And the chestnut tree, I guess
it's good to eat those little nuts too, but the thing I remember
about chestnut was back in the day, it was the best wood available
to build with. It had preserving qualities about
it. They used it on railroad ties,
and they used it for trestles for bridges, and they used it
on barns and things that just stood out in the weather. It
had a preservation quality about it. Well, these rods from these
trees were a picture of Christ, the glory of God in His face. That's what I see. When you talk
about a flower, all through the Scriptures, flowers refer to
glory, all the glory of man is like the flower of the grass.
He talked about that lily. He said Solomon, on all of his
glory, was not arrayed like that lily. So this is in reference
to God's glory. And so on. We talk about food. He's the bread sent down from
heaven. He's the building not made with hands, eternal in the
heavens. Christ. No doubt by divine direction,
Jacob takes these limbs from these trees and he cuts rods
or poles. And he takes a knife or an axe
or something and he cuts streaks into the wood. I don't know if
he cuts spots in it. I don't know if he cuts stripes
in it. I don't cut rings around it. He calls it ring strike. So I don't know exactly what
that means. But anyway, he peeled that bark
is what he did. He peeled that bark. And he removes
the bark in places to expose that white meat of the tree beneath. And wherever Laban's cattle and
sheep and goats assembled to drink, Did you know that cattle
and goats travel in herds and flocks? They go together. They go together. And you do know that God's sheep
assemble, don't you? You do know that's what the church
means, assembly? That's what it means. They assemble.
Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together. Can you
see the type here? He went down there where they
were assembled to drink. where they gathered to drink. And he took these poles and he
drove them in so that when they came to drink, they'd see these
rods with these carvings in them, these spots or ring streaks or
however you want to describe it. And when they saw them, they'd
produce spotted calves, brown lambs. They'd produce these things
that, all of these things in Jacob's favor. In Genesis 30, verse 37, it said,
He piled white strakes in them, and made the white to appear
which was in the rods. And He set the rods which He
had piled before the flocks and the gutters and the watering
troughs. And when the flocks came to drink, that they should
conceive when they came to drink. And the flocks conceived before
the rods, and brought forth cattle, ring-streaked, speckled, and
spotted. These rods to me are a clear
picture of the gospel preached to the assembly and by which
God's heritage is made known to this world. Now, I want you
to notice something here. Everything that was required
of the sacrificial lamb was contrary in the sheep, totally contrary. He said, you set aside that lamb
of the first year. It's to be without spot. Ain't
that what he said? No spots. It's got to be pure. Without blemish. No freckles.
No ring strength. Not brown. You bring this thing
in here without blemish, without spot. But here, Jacob's sheep,
totally contrary. They're known by theirs. They're
known by theirs. The sacrificial lamb was to be
without spot. All Christ's sheep are identified
by the very thing forbidden with the sacrifice. And while the
Lamb of God shall be without blemish and spot, His true sheep
are known by theirs. They're all sinners. Everyone. That's how you know them. Genesis
chapter 30 and verse 33. I'm going to kind of add some things to this verse
so you understand exactly what it's saying. It's kind of written
in the old English, but listen to this. So shall my righteousness
be, that is, my right to the sheep. That's what he's talking
about. So shall it be, so shall it answer for me in a time to
come when it shall come for my hire or be questioned. He's getting
ready to take these sheep and put them in his flock and they're
spotted and speckled and so on and so forth and somebody said,
wait a minute now, You sure them's yours? Yeah, this is the agreement.
Now that's what he's talking about here. When somebody's going
to ask, this is going to be my righteous justification of my
sheep right here. This is what it's going to be.
Everyone that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and
brown among the sheep, that shall be counted stolen to me. In other
words, I've got no claim to it. I've got no claim to it. Now,
the identity of God's sheep is known by their impure breeding.
They are all born in Adam, all dead in trespasses and sins.
Every one of them. They're all sinners. They're
known by their blemishes and spots. Turn with me to Matthew
chapter 9. I don't want you to think I've
gone off the deep end here. I want you to see this now in
the New Testament, what I'm talking about. Religion recognizes all
of its flocks and herds by their righteousness and purity. That
old Pharisee stood out there before the Lord. He didn't bow
his head. He looked right up into heaven, unashamed. He looked
over there at that old publican and he said, boy, I thank God
I'm not like him. I thank God. You know how he,
why he believed he was chosen of God? His own righteousness. That's what he trusted in. That's
how he identified himself before the Lord. He was proud of it. He didn't bow his head. He unashamedly
looked right up into the heavens. Our Lord said to those same people,
He said, on the outside, they indeed appear beautiful. On the
outside. They make clean the outside of
the cup and the platter. That's what He told them. They
appear righteous in their law keeping and tradition honoring
and reform morality, but all God's sheep are sinners. Now,
the Pharisees witnessed Matthew's calling here in Matthew chapter
9. And afterwards, the Lord went down to his house. And while
they was there, a lot of... Matthew was a publican. He was
a tax collector. And down at his house later on,
having dinner, and a lot of his friends came over. And they were
publicans, sinners. And they came and sat down with
the Lord and His disciples. Matthew 9, verse 11. And when
the Pharisees saw it, they said unto His disciples, Why eateth
your Master with publicans and sinners? Why is He over there
with those spotted sheep? Why ain't He over here with the
white sheep? Why does He shame Himself like
that? When Jesus heard that, verse 12, He said unto them,
They that behold need not a position, but they that are sick. Now you
go learn what that meaneth. I'll have mercy and not sacrifice.
Now listen, For I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners
to repentance. Jacob wasn't looking for the
righteous. He wasn't looking for the pure. He was looking
for the spotty. You think he knew something about salvation?
I do. I believe all these things are of the wisdom of God. Consider
Christ's sheep. He said, all we like sheep have
gone astray. That's what we did. We weren't obedient. We went
astray. We've turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord
laid on him the iniquity of us all. Consider how they're pictured
in the Scriptures, lepers, unclean, paralyzed, blind, haught, lame,
deaf, dumb, demon-possessed, adulterers, thieves, common whores,
not a righteous one in the flock, not a purebred lamb in the mix.
They are all sinners. They are all sinners. Paul said
to Timothy, he said, when you preach, he said, you remember
this. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation.
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom
I am chief." He didn't say, I used to be chief. He said, I am chief. I am. And how was their impurities
and spots and all these things, how was that revealed? How did
they come to know anything about this? How are these spotted,
speckled cattle produced? By looking at the ring-streaked
rod. looking at the ring-streaked
rod set before their eyes. God's sheep discover their sins
in the crucified Christ. Listen to this, Romans 8 verse
3, for what the law could not do in that it was weak through
the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful
flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. I'll tell you what
I know about the flesh, what I see on the cross. Now, men
can talk about how righteous they are and how good they are.
That rich young ruler come right up to our Lord, looked Him right
in the face and said, good master, and the Lord just stopped him
right there because he no doubt that was a common saying to him.
I bet you every one of those teachers and lawyers that he
come up to, he said, good master to. He come up to Christ and
he said, good master, and he said, whoa, why callest thou
me good? There's none good but God. None
good but God. I'll tell you how we know. We
look at that cross. We look at the crucified Christ.
I told them up in Danville one time, if you want to know what
the Lord thinks about you and your righteousness and your good
works and all those things, and what He will and will not consider,
you look to your substitute on the cross and see how God, see
what is He going to consider that I ever did. Where's the
consideration for any good that any man did on the cross? Where
is it at? Isn't any. Why? Because there's
none good. If there was going to be a consideration
for your walk and your works and your talking and your self-righteousness,
if there was going to be any consideration of those things
whatsoever, it would have been revealed at the cross. There
wasn't any. There wasn't any mercy, was there? That man who took that open palm
and slapped his face, he couldn't raise his hand. A sparrow can't
even fall to the ground without your father. That's God slapping
his face. That's God spitting in his face.
He didn't hold anything back. Why? Because they're none good. Those for whom he substituted
are not good. They're sinners. They're all
sinners. Every one of them. That's how
they're known, by their sins. I told you the other day I couldn't
come in spitting distance of telling you when the Lord saved
me, but I can tell you when I learn about sin. That's how God's sheep
are made known. He reveals to them who they are.
Who are they? They're sinners. They're sinners. When they find that out, they
seek Him. With all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, they
seek Him because they're sinners. They've got no hope in themselves.
They've got no hope in anything that they can do. They've got
no hope in their will. They know what their will is.
Their will is to go their way. They know that. They've got no
resistance in them against sin, and this little thing comes along,
boy, away they go, chasing the carrot. He took those pure, unspotted
Lamb of God, and He made Him to be sin for us, hung Him up
on the cursed tree, treated Him exactly as He will one day treat
all those who die in their sins, perfect justice and holiness.
He publicly judged him and punished him and ridiculed him to the
full extent of the law. Now, I believe there's two things
that the Holy Ghost uses at the cross of Christ to convince us
of sin. He uses that holy, sinless substitute,
dying under the wrath of God and dying under the just demands
of the holy law. We see him hanging up there.
We understand that He's our substitute. He's the substitute for sinners.
I see in Him how God judges sin. And I see in Him the judgment
of God on me because He's my substitute. You see that? I don't
have to speculate on how God feels about sinners. All I've
got to do is look at the cross. Look at the cross. And the second
thing I believe He uses is this. He uses the unbelief of those
who took a sinless man A man in whom, by their own testimony,
they could find no fault in him. They had to make up lies about
him because he didn't do anything to be charged with. They hunted. They had councils around him.
Hundreds of people had to pay men to lie on him because he
didn't do any sin or no sin in him. They couldn't find anything
to charge him with, so they made things up. Man discovers that. God reveals to him in his unbelief,
he reveals something to him about that holiness of God. That old
gray, dark, drab human nature figured in the bark on the pole
and the flesh of the rod and that white righteousness of God
exposed in his death on the tree. In the death of Christ, God declares
himself to be both just and justifier of sin. God commendeth his love
for us in that while we yet sinners Christ died for us. So the story
of Lee and Rachel is the two heathen pagan sisters called
to be brides. Brides, God's elect. And the
story of Jacob's rod is the gospel of God's sovereign grace calling
out sinners to be sons. That's what it is. How are men
and women born? When somebody stands up by the
grace of God and tells them that they're sinners. Tells them who
they are and who God is. Henry brought a message years
ago called the two-fold message of evangelism. I think he got
it from Ralph Barnard. But it's over in Isaiah. He said
the first thing you tell them is all flesh is grass. That's
the first thing that evangelist tells. He tells everybody he
gets a chance to talk to. All your glory is like the fire
of the grass, it fadeth. God blows on it and blows it
away. Good for nothing but to go in the fire. All flesh is
grass. And the second thing he tells
them, behold, you're God. Behold, you're God. Both of these
things in his ring-strength rod. How Jacob's going to know his
inheritance, they're all sinners. Every one of them, they're all
sinners. Now, when it's all over, I want
you to see what Laban's sons had to say in Genesis 31-1, and
I'll close. And he heard the words of Laban's
sons, and here's what they said. Now, by this time, Jacob's herds
were the multitude. He had it all. Laban had all
those sickly cows. They look white, they look purebred,
but if you read in here, they was all the sickly bunch. And
he heard the words of Laban's son, saying, Jacob hath taken
away all that was our father's, and of that which was our father's
hath he gotten all this glory. Isn't that something? That's
Christ. That's Christ. Our Lord told
him he came down there, John the Baptist came, and he was
out in the wilderness, and John the Baptist didn't drink any
wine, and he was a separatist, and he stayed out there in the
wilderness, and they couldn't find anything wrong with him,
and they complained. They said, well, he's a hermit.
He won't come down to the synagogues. He won't eat with us. He won't
fellowship with us. He's out there. He's nuts. He's off his rocker. Christ came,
and he ate with them and drank with them, and they called him
a publican and a sinner. Now here's what he said. He said,
The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they said, Behold,
a gluttonous man and a wine-bebber, a friend of publicans and sinners.
Here's what he told them. He said, But wisdom's justified
over children. Men justify their evil ways,
and God justifies His. He justifies His sovereign way
and His gracious ways. And in this, the children of
both are made known. They either spotted or they appear
white on the outside. That's how they know. You won't
find a believer. I dare say you will not find
a believer that won't own up to his sin. You don't have to
start talking to him about election and predestination. You just
walk up to him and start a conversation with him. And say, are you a
sinner? Oh, he'll hang his head down
and say, yes, I am. I am a sinner. You know. You
know who they are. They're not going to stand there
and say, well, I ain't always done the right thing, but I never
had drank anything with alcohol in it, or cigarettes had never
touched these lips. I've heard all kinds of stuff.
I'll tell you, it's so ridiculous. Father, take these things we've
talked about tonight and cause these things to enter into our
hearts. made light of some of these things, maybe I shouldn't
make light of them, but it's so ridiculous to me when I look
back on the things of religion and what men do. How God must
laugh at the things that men do and say, how ridiculous they
are. But use these things, teach us
in these pictures and things. Bring these pictures before our
eyes and let it cause us to know what we are before God. We're
just sinners. Just sinners saved by grace.
We thank you for the opportunity to gather together and for those
that came to hear. Use this message now for thy
name's honor and glory. We ask it for Christ's sake.
Amen.