And if you would turn to the
fourth chapter of the gospel according to Luke, Luke chapter
4. Now this is not my text per se
this morning, but it is like that hymn, a passage that sheds
a good deal of light on some of the things that we'll speak
of this morning in just a little while. The Lord Jesus in Luke
chapter 4 has begun his public life and ministry traveling throughout
Palestine, throughout Galilee, Judea, as well as Samaria and
some other places. Our Lord went a great deal of
places during that three to three and a half years of his public
life and ministry. But here he comes to Nazareth,
the village in which he grew up from the time he was a small
boy until the time he left to begin his public life at about
age 30. So he spent a lot of years in
this place. He knew a lot of people here.
He no doubt had relatives here. I want you to carefully notice
what takes place. The most amazing thing in all
the world, after such vile treatment at the hands of men, The Savior
came back a second time. You can find it in Matthew as
well as in Mark. All right, beginning at verse
16. The Lord Jesus is in the synagogue at Nazareth. And he
came to Nazareth where he had been brought up. And as his custom
was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood
up to read. They give him that honor. Can
you imagine the fuss that was made over hearing that he was
coming back after what they had heard? I bet they had more there
than we've got here this morning, for sure. And there was delivered
unto him the book or the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. And when
he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written. Now, you and I have done some
dumb things in religion, but have you ever done this? You're
going to teach a Bible class or read a passage of Scripture
and you just close your eyes and let the book fall where it
may and there you go. Well, that ain't what the Lord
Jesus did. He found the place where it was written. He looked
for a deliberate statement in Scripture. There was no word
in all the books of the Old Testament that our Lord Jesus did not know. My soul, He inspired it to be
written, and it's written about Him. So He finds this place where
this Scripture is, and in verse 18, here we have it. It comes
out of Isaiah chapter 61. The Spirit of the Lord is upon
me because He has anointed me Look what our Savior's been anointed
for, to preach the gospel to the poor. Now, poor means a lot
of things and different things to different folks. But the primary
meaning of this, people who are spiritually poor, poverty stricken
of soul. They're hard to find. They're
a divine thing. Holy Ghost must make them so.
You don't find people spiritually impoverished as a natural thing. It is a supernatural thing always
wherever it's found. To preach the gospel to the poor? He sent me to heal the brokenhearted? You've got to look at these things
spiritually now. Plenty of people lost money in
the stock market. That don't mean they're interested
in God. But you let our heart be broken
by God the Holy Ghost in convicting grace and mercy, and it'll be
a different matter. He sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives. That means captives
of Satan and sin. And recovering of sight to the
blind. That means the spiritually blind.
to set at liberty them that are bruised, bruised by the fall
of Adam in the garden, bruised by our own sinfulness in all
parts of our being, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, gave
it again to the minister, and sat down, and the eyes of all
them that were in the synagogue were fastened He began to say
this, this day, this scripture, the one that he just read, is
fulfilled in your ears. In other words, he said, what
I've read you is talking about me. And all bear him witness,
wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth.
They said, here's what they thought. Isn't this Jacob, Joseph's son? Isn't this the boy that grew
up in our village? Our Lord said to them, you will
surely say unto me this proverb, physician, heal yourself, prove
yourself to us. Whatsoever we have heard done
in Capernaum, do also here in your country. You owe it to us. Every man by nature, including
you and me, are born believing that God owes us a good time
and plenty of money and health and happiness and all the rest
and eternal life when we get through, even though we had no
interest in it until we die. Do it also here in your country. Now, if you don't have a Bible
when you get home, I want you to... Hey, Carl, whoever that
is, come on in. Come in, girls. You've got your
Bible, we're in Luke chapter 4, and you've got to look at
it real close because most people's Bible doesn't have this in there.
I'm joking, of course, but in more ways than one, there's more
truth in it than you can imagine. Luke chapter 4, verse 24, our
Lord said, Verily, amen, I say unto you, no prophet is accepted
in his own country, but I tell you of a truth. Many widows were
in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three
and a half years, when great famine was throughout all the
land. Here's what got them. But unto none of them was Elijah
sent, except unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, a city of Gentiles
and not Jews, unto a woman that was a widow. You remember how
God, through Elijah, sustained that woman and her son. Verse
27 is his second illustration. And many lepers were in Israel
in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed
except Naaman the Syrian. I mean, not just a Gentile this
time, but one whose expertise at making war led to the defeat
of Israel. And it was a servant that he
took home with him as a trophy of his conquering that told him
about this, about the prophet Elisha, that God could cure him
of his leprosy. Verse 28, all they in the synagogue,
when they heard these things, were filled with wrath. I know
you believe if you were there, you'd love Jesus and you wouldn't
be wanting to put Him to death, but that ain't so. Somebody told
you a lie if you believe that. We're just like they are. God
hasn't conquered our hearts by His grace. We'll leave this world
with that same desire, to kill God so I can sit on my own throne. That's all it is. So they rose
up and thrust Him out of the city, led Him to the brow of
the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast Him
down. headlong, headfirst. But He,
passing through the middle of them, went His way." Now, ladies
and gentlemen, that's a sobering section of Scripture. Make sure it's in your Bible
and that you have some knowledge of what it says. Now, if you
would like to hang on to Luke chapter 4, We just might come back there
in a little bit. I found an old outline sometime
yesterday or last night. I preached this outline February
the 28th of 1988, so it's not new, but I believe it's time
to preach it one more time. Here's my subject and my title,
Five Religious Fables. If you want me to be real blunt,
it's five religious lies. And the first one is, well, I
better get you to turn to the Scripture first. I'm going to
try to limit myself in having you turn to just one reference. I have five points. So the first
one is in Romans chapter 9. Romans chapter 9. Here's the first fable. God loves
everybody. He has to. It just can't be any
other way. I'm here to tell you this morning,
that's pure fallacy. It is a fable and it is a lie. God loves His people, don't you
misunderstand me. He not only loves them, He saves
them. And He not only loves and saves them, He keeps them saved.
But I am here to tell you that this book does not teach that
God loves everybody. Now, God has a universal benevolence. He showed if this is His world,
and it is, and if He rules and reigns in this world and everything
that comes to pass is the outworking of His will and purpose, you
have to say that God is gracious to people the world over. But
this does not mean that God has purposed and chosen those people
for Himself. There are many folks who go through
their whole life on this same globe that we live on who don't
even so much as know that there is a name such as Jesus. But
I'm telling you that God saves His people. And He does so because
He's loved them from everlasting. And He'll love them for everlasting
to come. Here's the Scripture. If you
doubt what I'm telling you, You can find this, not in these exact
words, but you can find it in these exact words in two places
at least. I'm referring to verse 13 in
Romans chapter 9. Paul has used an example concerning
Jacob and Esau when Rebecca had conceived with twins in verse
11. And it says in parentheses in
verse 11, for the children being not yet born, neither having
done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election
might stand, not of works, but of him that calls. It was said
to the younger, the elder shall serve the younger. Esau came
out of the womb first and Jacob second, and yet in the divine
purpose of God the order is reversed. Now why is that? Here's the answer. Verse 13, as it is written, quote,
straight out of the book of Malachi, Jacob have I loved, but Esau
have I hated. Now I know the whole religious
world has tried to tone that down and keep it from saying
that God can't hate anybody. You know, I don't even know if
we're capable of real love if we don't know something about
hate. We're born hating God. We're born thinking we know who
God should be and what He's supposed to do. And if He's not doing
it, He ought to do it because I believe He should do it. This
is just stupidity gone wild, and yet it inhabits every one
of our minds and our hearts. But I'm here to tell you, ladies
and gentlemen, if God loves you, He'll save you, and if He saves
you, He'll keep you saved forever and ever and ever. But He'll
do it by honoring His justice and His holiness, and He'll do
it through the precious gospel of Christ. you'll find out here's
the miracle. It's not so much amazing. It
ain't even amazing that God could hate Esau. And it ain't amazing
to say he could hate me and you because we've given him plenty
of reason to. But here's the miracle that God
could love Jacob. And here's the miracle in our
day that God could love you or me. That ought to amaze us. It ought to forever blind us
to argue or debate another moment over God hating Esau. Find out
how come God loved Jacob. All right, the second fable,
you turn to John chapter 10. Now, I promised you only to turn
once for each one, but I didn't say just for one verse. Okay,
so John chapter 10, and there must be a dozen or more, maybe
several dozen places that this could be established. But here's
my point. The first fable is that God loves
everybody, and that's not so. And the second fable is that
Christ died for every man alike. Everybody. Everybody. When Christ
went to the cross, He died for all the sins of all men. Well,
if he did, and if there's anybody in hell right now while we're
in this place, if there's anybody that's ever died and didn't go
to heaven, which by today's standard, just about every preacher, no
matter where you go, puts everybody he preaches in glory with Christ. It's utter. It's just utter. Insanity. Insanity. Let me remind some of you older
ones of something. We're going to have homecoming
in a couple of weeks. Well, in 1984, right here in
this spot, right here, goodly number of people were on the
warpath and they were going to give me my walking papers. If I knew then what I know now,
I would have never done this, but I thought I'd be try to be
charitable and gracious. And instead of me choosing the
homecoming preacher, I just said, y'all tell me who you want. So
they called a certain preacher's name that used to be the pastor
here back in the 60s. This is 1984. He's preaching
for us, or he called it preaching. He didn't say much, nothing really
of any consequence. But he told us an illustration
about holding the funeral for a man sometime just prior to
his coming here, and he struggled and struggled and struggled trying
to figure out how he could preach and say this man is in heaven.
And do you know what he said? He said, it suddenly dawned on
me just like that. He said, I preached the gospel
of the flag. The man had served in the United
States military, and that just makes him right on into heaven. The gospel of the flag is what
he called it. And if you remember in the early
70s, 270 Marines died in that Beirut bombing. Mr. Reagan was in office in Washington.
He said, we know they're all in heaven. They died serving
their country. Listen, ladies and gentlemen,
country and God ain't the same thing. We're not here because
we're Democrats or Republicans or Americans or Chinese for that
matter. We're here to worship the true
and living God. We must let that other stuff
be taken care of somewhere else and hopefully by somebody else.
It'll do us a whole lot of good just to shut our ears to all
the clamor that's all over the media every day that passes by.
All right, let's get back. We got detoured there. Second
fable, Christ died for everybody. I can't get it any simpler than
this. It has to be this simple for me to be able to read it
almost, let alone understand it. But in John chapter 10, the
whole subject for the whole chapter is about what? Christ as the
shepherd of His people, and it's talking about His sheep. Right? All right, let's just take a
few verses. Look at verse 11. I am the good shepherd. The good
shepherd gives his life for whom? Everybody. No. For the sheep. What about the goats? For the
sheep. I didn't write this. That's what
it says. Look at verse 15. As the Father knows me, even
so know I the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. Look at verse 16. and other sheep
I have which are not of this fold." Boy, this is news when
he first spoke these words. He's got sheep that aren't Jews,
that are Gentiles. You remember in Acts 10 when
the Holy Spirit appeared to Peter at Simon the tanner's house in
Joppa and said, go preach to these Gentiles. Peter said, you know, in the
vision about the food that came down in the sheet, he said, there's
no unclean food ever touched these lips. What did God say
to him? Don't call anything that belongs
to me unclean. So let's not look down our noses,
the people of other races or other this or other that, because
it just, that ain't where it is. Christ has a people. from every tongue, tribe, and
kindred on the face of this earth. And the gospel must be preached
to the end of the world, because we don't have a clue who those
people are. And the only way to find out
is preach the gospel to them and see if God intervenes and
speaks that word in power. Then we'll know that something's
up. God's begun a work of grace in a poor sinner's soul. Let's
see, I had one other verse or two. Verse 24, Then came the
Jews round about, and Him said, How long do you make us to doubt?
If you be the Christ, tell us plainly. My goodness, if you
just went back through the nine chapters in the Gospel of John,
you would have to laugh at such a statement. You've not given
us enough evidence that you're the Messiah. We just can't believe
in you. Verse 25, Jesus answered them,
I told you, I told you that I was the Christ and you believe not. The works that I do in my Father's
name, they bear witness of me. I mean, in just the previous
chapter, John chapter 9, He healed a man that was born blind and
saved him all in the same chapter. Verse 26, Now this might not
be in your Bible, but you ought to check it and see. You know
why I know that? Because it wasn't in mine for
a long, long, long time. How stupid could I be? God have
mercy on my soul. But you believe not because you
are not of my sheep. It does not say the opposite
of that. It says the reason you do not
believe is because we're not His sheep. One more verse. My sheep hear My voice, and I
know them, and they follow Me, and I give unto them eternal
life. All right, the third one. We've got to move on. Let me
see. Let's go to John 1. That's real easy to get to. We're
right in John. Here's the third fable. third religious fable. We're born believing these fables.
We don't need any help to believe these fables. It comes natural
to us to believe all these fables. But here's the third one. Salvation
can only be ours by a personal decision that we make. We have to make the decision.
God can't save me lest I do something first. It's put all kinds of
ways, but it basically says that God's hands are tied until we
do something to untie them, and then He can be gracious to us.
You know, if we repent, if we have faith, if we take the first
step, if we walk from our pew to the front, and all, just a
thousand and one different things, it's different strokes for different
folks, depending on where you are and what kind of religion
you're in, but it's all the same thing. God can't do anything
until we let Him. And that, my friend, is a lie.
You're God, perhaps, but not the God of this book. Oh, never,
never, never. Not so. How did I find the first
chapter of Mark? And I'm looking for John. Here
it is. John chapter 1. The fable is
that salvation is accomplished by a decision that we make. Let me read it straight out of
the book. Verses 12 and 13 of John chapter 1. That's just finished
telling us. Let me just read verse 11. The
Lord Jesus came unto His own, His own people, His own nation,
His own world, and His own received Him not. We did just like this
on the Lord Jesus. Go back where you came from.
We don't want you and we don't need you. That's the response
of every last single one of us until God in the power of His
grace accomplishes in us divine regeneration and the new birth.
All right, verse 11, He came unto His own and His own received
Him not, but as many as received Him. So there were some that
did receive Him. To them gave He power or authority
to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.
So what's the difference between verse 11 and verse 12? How come
some people received Him and the majority did not? Here's
the answer. Verse 13. And I'm telling you,
I preached a long time in Southern Baptist religion before I found
out verse 13 was even in my Bible. It may as well not have been.
I never went past verse 12. I had no understanding of verse
13. I avoided it like the plague.
Here's why some people receive Christ while others do not. It says in verse 13, which were
born, who were born. What kind of birth is this? It's
not of blood. It's got nothing to do with who
you're kin to, who you're descended from, or anything else. It's
got nothing to do with who your mother and daddy is, your grandparents,
whoever. Not of blood. Secondly, not of
the will of the flesh. In other words, salvation is
not by your will or my will. It's by God's will. And He always
does His will. God can't save me unless I open
my heart's door. That is the most idiotic statement. Preachers have used Revelation
3.20. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. And do you know
what door that is? It's the church door. The church
of the Laodiceans. It's not talking about evangelism.
It's not talking about trying to tell a sinner if you don't
open your heart's door, he won't come in. My soul, what God are
you talking about? Which were born, not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of some other
person. How on earth do these people
receive Christ, which were born of God? That's it. Plain and simple. Make all the
decisions you want, but until God saves you, you ain't ever
going to be saved. We can pretend, we can play the
game, we can look good and smell good and all the rest, but it
doesn't count. All right, the fourth fable.
I won't have you turn to anything for this one. I'll just cite
a couple of examples. Is that fair enough? God is trying to
save everybody. Now, that's a good philosophical
question. Is he or isn't he? Well, if God
is almighty, everywhere present, has all knowledge, why can't
he do that? What's keeping him from it? God
is trying to save everyone. You mean he can't? No, I'm telling
you that's what religion says. I used to say that. Oh, yes,
I did. And I ain't proud of that. I
know better now, I was as lost as the people to whom I was preaching.
You know what I'm talking about. God and the word try can never
be used together. He does not try. Now, can I say
it any plainer than that? Did He try to save the Samaritan
woman in John chapter 4 that He met at Jacob's well? No. to turn the conversation away
from herself. And she tried her best to get
away from him, but she never succeeded. She used every religious
subject she could think of to change the subject and never
could change it. How about Mark chapter 5, the
maniac of Gadara? This man was wild. He had lost his mind. He was naked. He lived among
the tombs. Our Lord stepped out of that
boat in that land of Gadara, found that poor sinner that He
went there to find, and cast out enough demons out of that
man to send 2,000 head of hogs into the Sea of Galilee, and
they perished. But our Lord had no trouble saving
the Gadarene maniac. When everybody from town came
My take is they were worried about losing all them hogs. But
anyway, they came to find out what was going on. And here's
this man that they could not tame with chains and ropes or
anything else, preached the Ten Commandments to him. So the man
went mad. And our Lord, without doing anything
but speaking, transforms this man. He's sitting at the feet
of Christ. He's clothed. And he's in his
right mind. You tell me that God's trying
to do something? Oh, no. No. That's just a ploy
to make people think they are somebody. We have to help God. God doesn't need your help nor
mine. The minute we begin to think
He does, we ain't nothing, absolutely. One more, number five. The fifth
fable is this. man by his free will, quotation
marks around it, has the power to make the saving work of Christ
on the cross either a success or a failure. I must ask first
of all, is Jesus Christ God Almighty? He absolutely is. You can't make
God fail if you've got all the people in the whole world on
your side. This can't be done. But we still hear it said, and
we ourselves used to use the same language, God cannot save
you unless you let Him. The word let and the word God
do not mix. It's God letting us. You remember
the language of that hymn I pointed out to you? We've lost that,
my friends. We need to find it again. All
right, if you'll turn to... Man, I've got more time than
normal. I'm turning to Philippians. just
past Galatians and Ephesians, the third chapter of Philippians. And I'll take it for granted
that you're familiar with the conversion of a particular man
in our Bibles whose conversion is called in one of his letters,
it is called the pattern conversion. In other words, here's a type
and an example of all conversions, and that man is the Apostle Paul. And if you go back and read this
chapter, the first nine or ten verses, just powerful statements. Not as though I had already attained,
either were already perfect, but I follow after. Here it is. If that I may apprehend, lay
hold of, that for which also I am apprehended, of Christ Jesus. How did our Savior save the apostle? He laid hold of him, unhorsed
him and put him in the dust, and bestowed on him eternal life. Paul wasn't going to a prayer
meeting, my friend. He was going to arrest and put
in prison, and if he could, to death the believers of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Yet God can't do anything unless
we let That's just pure poppycock.