I'm going to preach to you this
morning about the work God requires. That's the title of my message,
The Work God Requires. The Jewish Talmud tells us that
the whole law was given to Moses at Sinai in 613 precepts. That's almost as many as most
Baptist folks have. It was summarized and given to
the children of Israel in Ten Commandments. And then those
Ten Commandments are holy, just, and good. Let no one misunderstand
our teaching and the teaching of Holy Scripture with regard
to God's law. It is holy, just, and good. By the law, we are given the
knowledge of sin. Sin is identified and defined. By the law we are taught our
need of a substitute, a mediator, a savior, one who can stand in
our stead between us and God and satisfy all the demands of
God and all the needs of our souls. That mediator, that substitute
is Jesus Christ the Lord. Isaiah, in chapter 33 of Isaiah's
prophecy, turn there if you will, wrote by divine inspiration and
he reduced all the commandments to six. promising that all who
walk righteously and speak uprightly despise the gain of oppression
and refuse to be bribed and despise the shedding of blood and turn
away from evil shall dwell on high. Look at this, Isaiah 33
verse 14. The sinners in Zion are afraid.
Fearfulness has surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall
dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with
the everlasting burning? And then he tells us who. He
that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly. He that despiseth
the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding
bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth
his eyes from seeing evil. He shall dwell on high. His place
of defense shall be the munitions of the rocks. Bread shall be
given him, and his waters shall be sure. Thine eyes shall see
the king in his beauty. The prophet Micah, in a very
familiar passage in Micah chapter 6 and verse 8, reduces the commandments
to just three. He has showed thee, O man, what
is good. What doth the Lord require of
thee? but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with
thy God. And during the days of his earthly
ministry, you'll recall our Lord Jesus spoke to the rich young
ruler who came to him saying, good master, what good thing
shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And he said to
the rich young ruler, keep the commandments. The Lord Jesus
said to him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the
first and great commandment. And the second is likened to
it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments
hang all the law and the prophets. The 613 precepts of the law when reduced to their essence
require just two things. Just two things. God only requires
two things of you. Just two things God requires
of me. Love God with all your heart and your neighbor just
like you love yourself. Well, that's not too hard. You didn't hear him. Love God with all your heart
and your neighbor just like yourself. Love God perfectly and love your
neighbor perfectly and you got it made. It's all it takes. That's all it takes. From the
first breath to the last. With no deviation. With no variance. with no slip up, either inward
or outward. Brother Don, that shuts us all
up without hope. It does indeed, except for one
thing. We can yet fulfill God's law. We can yet completely and perfectly
obey everything God requires of man. Everything. All 613 precepts. All 10 commandments. These two
things on which hang all the law and the prophets. We can
fulfill them all. We can keep one commandment God
requires. If we can. If we can. We can
keep them all. Are you interested in just one
thing? One work God requires of men? One work by which men
and women, sinners like you and I, can fulfill all the law of
God? Turn to John chapter 6, and I'll
show you what that work is. John chapter 6, we'll begin at
verse 22. The day following, when the people
which stood on the other side of the sea saw that there was
none other boat there save that one where unto his disciples
were entered, and that Jesus went not with his disciples into
the boat, but that his disciples were gone away alone. Howbeit, there came other boats
from Tiberias, nigh unto the place where they did eat bread
after that the Lord had given thanks. When the people therefore
saw that Jesus was not there, neither his disciples, they also
took shipping and came to Capernaum seeking for Jesus. And when they
had found him on the other side of the sea, they said unto him,
Rabbi, when camest thou hither? These folks who had wanted to
take him by force and make him a king, he slipped out of their
midst and he's across the sea. And they know because they've
been watching. He didn't get on any of the boats. He didn't get on any of the ships.
There were lots of them who came from over there across the sea
to Capernaum. He didn't get on a boat with
his disciples, and he didn't get on another boat after his
disciples left. And so they came over looking for him. They said,
Master, when did you come here? And the Lord could have told
them, well, I walked over here. He could have told them that.
After all, they wanted to make him a king. That would just have
reinforced those things. But he was not interested in
being a carnal king over a carnal nation. Rather, the Lord sticks
his finger to the issue of their hearts. He says, Jesus said unto them, or Jesus
answered them and said, verse 26, Verily, verily, I say unto
you, You seek me not because you saw the miracles. That is
not because you understood the miracles. They clearly saw them.
But because you did eat of the loaves and were filled. Rather than demonstrating his
supernatural power as God, our Lord Jesus shows these people
that he knew them. He understood their thoughts.
He understood why they were there. They came seeking him, but they
came seeking him only because of what they could get from him.
They came seeking him in a hypocritical manner, and they showed their
hypocrisy as they came and said, Lord, how did you get here? When
did you come here? We've been seeking you. Our Lord
Jesus knew their motives and he knows ours. Let us be wise. And if we are anything, be sincere
before God. Honest before God. Hypocrisy
is a horrible evil. And hypocrisy in the things of
God is the greatest of evils. You may deceive men. You may
deceive one another with a little religious talk and a religious
profession and a little attendance at church and some religious
activity. But you won't deceive God Almighty.
You won't deceive the Son of God. He sees through us all. He hears our motives more than
our words. He hears our thoughts more than
our speech. And he understands all clearly.
Read on. Verse 27. Our Lord Jesus says,
labor not for that meat which perisheth. You've eaten the loaves
and fishes. And you came all the way across
this sea in the middle of this storm to get some more loaves
and fishes. Labor not for that meat which
perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting
life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you. For him hath God
the Father sealed. What the Lord here forbids is
not labor, and care with regard to material things. I have met
a few lazy dotes who refuse to work and they get a little dose
of religion and think religion excuses them for being lazy dotes. The Lord God nowhere promotes
sloth and idleness. Nowhere. He nowhere encourages
indifference with regard to earthly responsibilities. Our Lord speaks
plainly in his word. If a man will not work, neither
should he eat. Those words are as plain as the
nose on your face. Our Lord never encourages idleness
or indifference with regard to our responsibilities. Man is
responsible to provide for his family. It's just his responsibility. It means if you have to shovel
manure and do it for two different people at two different times
at the same time, that's what you do. That's what you do. Well,
you don't know what you're talking about. I've done it. I do know
what I'm talking about. I do know what I'm talking about.
God never encourages sloth and idleness. Well, what's the Lord
talking about here? He's telling us that rather than
devoting ourselves to that which is marked for destruction, we
ought to devote ourselves to eternal life in Christ the Redeemer. Exercise responsibility and proper
care and proper diligence with regard to all earthly responsibilities. Exercise proper care. If you
work for a man and you profess faith in Christ, you ought to
be the best employee he's got. That's just all there is to it.
You don't like what's going on? Keep your mouth shut. Let other
folks gripe. There'll be plenty. You don't like the way the boss
is running things? Keep your mouth shut. Let other folks grumble.
There will be plenty to grumble. You be the best employee he's
got for the glory of God. And that's more important than
your personal gratification. but don't set your heart on what
you can get by the money you earn. Don't set your heart on
temporal earthly things. Set your heart on Christ. Set
your heart on eternity. This is what our Lord's saying.
Be wise and live not for time, live for eternity. Live for eternity. This life everlasting is that
which is the gift of Christ, the God-man, our Mediator, who's
called here the Son of Man. This Mediator, this Son of Man,
the Lord Jesus Christ, is that one whom God the Father hath
sealed. What a strange word. Lord willing,
I'll talk to you about that next Sunday morning. Lynch is going
to be gone, asked me to take his class. There are several
things in this book that's spoken of as being sealed. God the Father
has sealed his son. Sealed for the purpose of identification. Sealed for the purpose of security.
Sealed secretly and kept secret. Him the Father hath sealed and
kept secret, marking him for security. Now, look at verses
28 and 29. Then said they unto him, What
shall we do? Good master, what good things
will I do? What shall we do? What shall we do? If you try
to witness to someone, family, friend, neighbor, fellow who
pumps your gas, fellow who carries your groceries to the car if
you can find one to do that, you try to witness to them, tell
them something about the Savior, this will be the first thing
they'll say if you get their attention. What should I do?
What should I do? That's just our nature. We love
to do. We love to do. What shall we
do that we might work the works of God? What shall we do that
we might work the works of God? That we might do what you just
did. Turn loaves, multiplying them
to feed thousands. What should we do? that we might
do miraculous things performing the works of God. We love works. Give us something to do and we'll
do it. If by doing it, we can get something
from God. Give us something to do and we'll
do it. That's our nature. That's the
religion of the world. That's your religion and my religion
by nature. We all want to weave a web of
righteousness of our own spinning. Spinning a thread from our own
entrails by which we can lasso heaven and pull ourselves up
to the very throne of God and give ourselves eternal life.
Nobody, nobody wants salvation free of cost. Nobody, except
somebody who has nothing to pay. Nobody wants salvation free of
cost except somebody who has absolutely nothing with which
to pay. And those people are few and
far between. Martin Luther was exactly right. He called work's
religion the devil's feces. In case you don't know what that
means, that's doo-doo religion. It's exactly right. Oh brother
Don, you're being irreverent. I'm being as utterly irreverent
toward works religion as I can possibly be. It's the devil's
feces. Those who seek to be saved by
works, Luther called the devil's martyrs because they take great
pains to go to hell. Look at verse 29. Jesus answered
and said unto them, this is the work of God. What should we do that we should
do the works of God? Our Lord Jesus said this is the
work singular of God. This is the work of God. That
ye believe on him whom he hath sent. Did I read that right,
Ron? Did I read that correctly? This
is the work of God. The one, the only work God requires
of you and of me. The one thing God requires that
you personally, each of you individually believe on him whom the father
has sent, that one whom the father has sealed. This is the work
God requires of you. Believe on his son. This is the
work God performs, giving you faith to believe on his son. This is the work God accepts,
the only work God accepts, believing on his son. We read in 1 John
3, 23, this is his commandment that we should believe on the
name of his son, Jesus Christ. Faith alone. Faith alone, not
just faith in theory. I get so sick and tired of hearing
politicians and folks who want to appear religious on television
talk about faith, people of faith, people of faith. Mohammed was
a man of faith, false faith, but faith. Lots of folks have
faith. People of faith, you stop by
Sister Dora down here and have her read you a poem, that's faith.
It's ridiculous nonsense, but it's faith. I'm talking about
faith in Jesus Christ. That's the one thing God requires
of you, and you can't do it. That's the one thing God requires
of you, and you can't do it. I don't claim to know much about
faith. I'm like that centurion who said, Lord, I believe, help
thou mine unbelief, but I'm interested in it and you ought to be. The
word of God has a lot to say about faith. Listen to this.
Our Lord said this, if thou canst believe, all things are possible to him
that believeth. If you can believe God, it's
not just a matter of Well, if you believe something strong
enough, it'll happen. That's Walt Disney faith, that ain't
faith. No, that's not faith. If you can believe God, if you
can trust God, all things are possible to him that believeth.
Our Lord said, if ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, if
you had just a little bit, You might say to this sycamore tree,
be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea,
and it should obey you. Frank, I don't really know what
that means. I really don't know what that means. But I know it
means this much. If you had just a little bit
of faith, nothing would get in your way. Just a little bit of
faith. Just a little bit of faith. Nothing
would stop you from obeying God. Just a little bit of faith, nothing
would keep you from being obedient as the servant of Christ. Our
Lord said, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory
of God. He once said to an old harlot who did what the religious folks
around her just couldn't do. She trusted him. And she came
behind him and knelt down Understanding what he said concerning his death
and his resurrection as her substitute and she Anointed him for his
burial in the prospect of his resurrection And our Lord looked
at that weeping harlot and he said thy faith hath saved thee
Wow Thy faith has saved there now. I know we we like to guard
and hedge and Try to protect the Word of God. Most of the
preachers I hear get to that passage in Luke chapter 7 where
the Lord said, thy faith has saved thee. Now, he didn't mean
that. He meant thy faith has saved thee. And if it troubles
you, you got trouble. Thy faith hath saved thee. Thy
faith hath saved thee. When he saw the faith of four
men who brought their friend to him, four men, four men who
had a friend who was paralyzed, And they were having a meeting
down at the church house. And the Lord Jesus was the appointed
preacher. And they knew if they could get
their friend somehow in front of their Savior, things would
surely have to change. They just knew. They just knew.
If they could get their friend in front of the Savior, things
would surely have to change. And they got to the meeting,
and it was all full. They couldn't get in. No empty seats. Must
not be God's will, let's take it back home. No. They tore the roof off the building
and found a way to climb up there. Four men carrying a man on a
mattress, carrying him on a rug, found a way to pull him up there
and let him down through the roof. And they're still up on
the roof. And the Lord Jesus looked at
that man and he looked at those four fellas And he said, fella,
seeing their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, you're healed. Your sins are forgiven you. Did
he do that? When he saw their faith, he said,
man, thy sins are forgiven thee. Paul tells us in Romans five,
being justified. being justified by the obedience
of Jesus Christ our Redeemer unto death. By faith we have
peace with God. He said, by grace are you saved
through faith. Now I've said all that to make
you understand that God Almighty highly exalts faith in Jesus
Christ. Here are five things revealed
in this book about faith. Now remember, Remember I'm talking
about faith. I'm not just talking about faith
as an ideal or our faith is a Some kind of a thing that can't be
you can't put your fingers on it Just he has faith and I have
faith and we have faith and they have faith We are all people
of faith. Everything will be all right because we have faith.
That's kind of like rubbing a rabbit's foot That's not faith. I'm talking
about faith in the Son of God I'm talking about faith in Jesus
Christ the Lord. I'm talking about that faith
Which will cause a man? calls a woman to commit himself
to Christ in the totality of his being, trusting Christ alone
as Savior and Lord. Number one, faith is the foundation
grace. The grace, I mean, upon which
all other graces are built, the grace from which all other graces
flow. While love is the greatest of
all graces and hope is the grace of comfort and expectation. Faith
is the foundation grace. The foundation from which both
hope and love spring. Our Lord never says, love me
and you shall have eternal life. Our Lord never says, believe
that you have eternal life and you shall have eternal life.
He never says hope in eternal life and you'll have eternal
life. He says believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt
be saved. Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God. The first evidence of life in
the soul is faith. Faith in Christ is the proof
that we have life. Believing on Christ, I have been
delivered from penal death. in free justification. That is
to say, God's holy law has no claim on me. God's holy law cannot
touch me, and I know that because I trust Christ who died for me.
Believing on the Lord Jesus, I have been delivered from spiritual
death and regeneration and sanctification. The proof that Christ died for
me, that the Spirit has called me, is I believe on the Son of
God. No form of works religion, no
religious profession, no amount of knowledge, no feelings or
emotions can assure me that I am both absolved of guilt and born
of God. But faith does. He that believeth on the Son
of God hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation.
That's what faith says. A faith given by God. This faith in Christ is the first
evidence of life in the soul. And so all true spiritual life
is sustained by faith. The child of God doesn't trust
his emotions or his devotions, his feelings or his doings. He
looks to Christ. Listen to this. Let's repeat
it four times in scripture. The just shall live by faith. The just shall live by faith. That does not mean that our faith
gives us life, but rather faith in Christ is that by which we
live continually sustaining life. The just shall live by faith.
Spurgeon said, hearty belief in God, his son, his promises,
his grace is the soul's life. Neither can anything take its
place. Believe and live is the standing
precept, both for the saint and the sinner. Here's the second
thing. This faith is the gift of God.
Turn to Ephesians two, Ephesians two. You may believe many things,
and there are certainly many types of faith that men have.
But saving faith, that faith that unites the sinner to the
Savior in a living, indissolvable union, that faith is the gift
of God. It's not the product of the flesh.
Mama and Daddy can't talk you into it. The preacher can't talk
you into it. The soul winner can't give it
to you. It's the gift of God. Ephesians 2 verse 8. For by grace
are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. Mr. Billy Graham, I heard him say
it years and years ago. I was just a young man. He said,
every man has a sixth sense. He can believe God. That's not
what this book says, that not of yourselves. It doesn't lie
within the realm of possibility for you to believe God. That's
not a possibility with man. That not of yourselves, it is
the gift of God. Not of works lest any man should
boast. Unto you it is given in behalf
of Christ to believe on his name. Faith is the operation of God. It is that which is wrought in
us by God the Holy Spirit, by that very same power with which
He raised Christ from the dead. Did God the Spirit give life
to the dead corpse of the Son of God? He did indeed. What does
it take for you to live? God the Spirit must give you
life. Faith in Christ is that which is the result of a divine
resurrection. It is God giving us life and
having life. Now we believe we trust him.
I know this, too. Sinners are justified by faith
alone. Now, I can't tell you how much
trouble I've gotten into the last several years for insisting
on this. I was talking about the Darwin
last night. He's had to answer some challenges because he's
kind of associated with me. But faith is not the cause of
justification. The grace of God is the cause
of justification. Faith is not the basis of justification. The blood of Jesus Christ is
the basis of justification. We were justified freely by God's
grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus. Is that
clear enough? Nobody justifies himself. But it's impossible for any man
or woman to be justified before God and not have faith in Christ.
It's impossible. Faith is the voice of justification. Faith is the means by which we
receive justification. It is the means by which God
declares justification in our hearts. Listen to this, Christ
was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our
justification. He was delivered because our
offenses were made his offenses. He was raised again because he
by his death accomplished our justification. Therefore, being
justified by faith, we have peace with God. How do I know that
I've been justified? Because I believe God. I believe
God the fact that God gave me faith is God's voice declaring.
I'm justified It is God sending forth his spirit into our hearts
crying Abba father by faith We now receive the atonement. We
now receive justification The Apostle Paul writes again in
Galatians to turn there and look at it if you will Galatians chapter
2 verse 16 Let me give you the background.
Peter is sitting down with the Gentile brethren at Antioch. They're having barbecued ribs
and pork chops and maybe a little pork liver. And Peter is just
chewing away. First time he's ever had good
southern cooking. And then he looked up and saw some Jewish
brethren coming. who taught that you must be circumcised
to be saved. Some Jewish brethren who were
saying you got to keep the law or you ain't really a Christian.
And this is what Peter did. He didn't say anything. He didn't
say anything. He just got up, got him a list
of mint strip, stuck it on his tongue. He said, hello, Joe. It's good to see you, Brother
Bernstein. And Paul said he led away a dissimulation. A dissimulation. A pretentious,
fake, false, lie. And he calls Barnabas to follow
him. And Paul said, I will stood him
to the face. And this is what I said to him. Knowing that a
man is not justified, by the works of the law. All Peter did
was got up and acted like, he just acted like these Jews were
right. That's all he did. He didn't
say they were right. He just got up and moved over
there. He moved over there. That tells you a lot, doesn't
it? There are some places I'm not gonna go preach. Not going
to. Now I'll preach the gospel to
anybody. But I'm not going to go anywhere and have somebody
think I'm giving approval to that which is false. I'm not
going to do it. I'm not going to sit on a platform
and preach the gospel with a heretic. I'm not going to do it. I'm not
even going to preach a funeral with him. I'm not going to do
it. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to pretend that
we're brethren. It's not going to happen. No, sir. Because if
I, uh, if Larry Brown's over there preaching free will works
religion right down the road, and I, I go over there and say,
hello brother Larry, let's have a meeting together. That tells
the whole world, Brother Larry and I are brothers. We worship
the same God. I'm not going to do it. And those
who do are leading a dissimilation. They're either being false, I
hope they are, or they're really declaring that they are at their
core false. Paul said, Peter, you know we're
not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of
Christ. Not even by our believing in
Christ, but by Christ's obedience as the faithful servant of Jehovah.
Even we had believed in Jesus Christ. Now, there's our faith.
That we might be justified by the faith of Christ. Now, wait
a minute, brother Don, you said we were justified by Christ obedience. That's exactly right. But Peter
Paul says here, we believe on Christ. We believe in Christ
that we might be justified by the faith of Christ. What's it
all about? Justified in our own conscience,
justified in our own hearts, so that our consciences are given
peace before God Almighty, who by His Spirit sprinkles the conscience
with the blood of Christ, declaring us justified. That we might be
justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law,
for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Here's
the fourth thing. True saving faith is a growing
grace. Everything that is alive grows. If our faith is a dead faith,
a faith of mere religious profession, a faith of mere doctrinal orthodoxy,
it doesn't grow. But if our faith is a living
grace, a living thing, uniting us to Christ, a living thing
by which we draw life from Christ, by which we are livingly joined
to the Son of God, then we grow. Your faith, Paul said to the
Thessalonians, groweth exceedingly. Believers grow in the grace and
knowledge of Christ. What does that mean? We trust Christ. And then we learn
to trust him. And Rex, we just keep on learning,
don't we? We just keep on, because we won't. We won't. Except he
make us trust him. We just won't do it. We just
won't do it. We can't. Except he'd make us,
trust him. Make us. I've heard fellows tell this.
I don't know whether anybody's telling the truth, sure enough or not.
Whether Daddy told them to swim and took them out to the river
and threw them in the water. Surely Daddy wouldn't do that.
Well, sure he would. Sure he would. If the Daddy knows
the water's not very deep. and he can reach and grab you
anytime. Well, it scares that child to death, yeah, but he'll
sure enough learn to swim. It's either sink or swim. That's all
there is to it. Well, look at that boy. He never swam before. There he
is, swimming in that water. Sloshing around, making a mess,
but he's swimming. Give him a few weeks, let's see how he swims. And God, our Savior, graciously
forces us to trust Him. And then tomorrow, He forces
us in another way. And next year, He forces us in
another way. And we, little by little, learn
to trust Him. As faith grows, assurance grows,
because we trust Him. As faith grows, love for Christ
grows, because we trust Him. As faith grows, love for one
another grows, because we trust Him. 1 John chapter 3, we read
earlier this morning. I read that chapter and I think,
Lord, what on earth are you saying here? What are you saying? this is his commandment that
we believe on his son and that we love one another as he gave
his commandment. Is that two things? Or one thing? Is there something intimately
vital between faith and love? Indeed there is. Indeed there
is. As we grow in faith we get to
be a little less fearful, a little less troubled, as the Lord God
graciously fixes it, so we have to trust Him. But I know this too. There are many imitators of faith.
James said, thou believest there is one God, that's good, but
it's not too good, the devil's new as well. The devils believe
and tremble. There is a false faith. False faith may be greatly enlightened
and very knowledgeable. False faith excites the affections
as demonstrated in the stony ground heroes. False faith is
well identified by the Pharisees for it reforms the outward life.
False faith may, like Nicodemus who came to Jesus by night, speak
highly of Christ. False faith may confess sin with
great sorrow. Oh, I believe he's sincere. I
believe he's sincere. I thought I couldn't, thought
I couldn't fake that. Judas did. Judas did. False faith may repent. So sorry. So sorry. Esau sought a place of repentance
with tears. He saw what he sold when he sold
his birthright, and he wanted it back. He had no interest in
the Savior represented in the birthright, but he wanted the
privileges of the birthright, and he was horrified to think
he had lost it. False faith may do great religious
works with great diligence. Now, I can spend a lot of time
here. I'm going to spend a little time. I hear folks talk, talk
about people who, well, I know, I know I say, because I, I quit
drinking and I quit smoking. I quit chewing. I quit dancing. I had folks tell me when God
saved me, he took the, he took the tap out of my toe. Now I
quit doing this, quit doing that. Let me tell you something. If you can identify true faith,
by the way somebody dresses, and what they eat, and the way
they talk, Mother Teresa, as they called that witch, and I
meant to say that witch, Mother Teresa was a true believer. Either
she's a saint or you're a saint. It can't both be so. It can't
both be so. Well, you look at that, we can
see, we can see grace in people's lives. No, you can't. You can't
see it in somebody else's life. You can't even see it in your
own. Does that mean it doesn't matter how people live? You know
better. You know better. But to suggest
that assurance for yourself or somebody else is based on how
you act is nothing but works religion. It is nothing but a
declaration that men are justified by their works. False faith. can be very diligent in performing
works. That's how the Jews got the son
of God crucified. It wasn't an easy thing for them
to do it. They stayed up all night. They had to plot and scheme
all in the name of God to get it done. False faith often has
great religious privileges. When Lot came out of sodomy, An angel took him by the hand
and pulled him out of that city. An angel did. Whoo! That's an
experience. Another angel took his wife by
the hand and pulled her out. Had the same experience. False
faith may preach, perform great miracles, and even cast out devils. Read Matthew chapter 7. Lord,
Lord, have we not done many wonderful works in thy name? Have we not
prophesied in thy name? Have we not cast out devils in
thy name? False faith may attain great offices in the church.
There was a fellow that John names by the name of Diotrephes
who loved to have the preeminence. He got a pulpit and he got a
prominent pulpit and everybody knew who he was because he advertised
and said, I'm Deotrephes. False faith can be peaceful and
secure. A fella couldn't go through that
and have so much peace and not be a child of God. Couldn't.
There were five foolish virgins who did, described by our Lord
in the parable. False faith may even persevere
and hold out to the very day of judgment." Have we not done all these things?
Now let me ask you a question. What then is true saving faith? Turn to 2 Timothy chapter 1.
I'll show you and I'll wrap this up. I can't give you a plan or a
blueprint and say, follow this, do that, and say the other, and
you'll be saved and you'll have faith. In fact, I'll tell you
right now, anyone who tells you how you can get faith, who tells
you do this, that, or the other, go down the Romans road, say
the sinner's prayer, repeat this, repeat that, anybody who tells
you how you can get faith doesn't have a clue what faith is. If
you want faith, faith in Christ, if you're seeking this great
gift of God, if you're seeking the Lord, you've come to the
right place. For faith comes by hearing and hearing by the
word of God. And it involves at least these
three things. Second Timothy 1 verse 12. Paul says, for the which cause
I also suffer these things. Nevertheless, I'm not ashamed.
For I know, number one, knowledge. Whom I have believed, number
two, believe. And am persuaded, number three,
persuaded. Persuaded that he's able to keep
that which I've committed unto him against that day. I know
whom I have believed. A man cannot believe what he
does not know. You cannot trust an unknown savior. Our Lord tells us in John chapter
20, many of the signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his
disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written
and they're written for this purpose, that you might believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that believing
you might have life through his name. No one will ever have faith
in Christ who doesn't know something about this book, something about
God, the character of God, something about the sinfulness of man,
something about salvation. You've got to know something
about the person and work of Christ, who he is, why he came
here, what he accomplished while he was here, where he is now.
You've got to know Christ or you can't trust it. Saving faith
is not a leap in the dark. It is a It is based upon revealed
truth. Faith comes by hearing and hearing
by the Word of God. But there's more to faith than
knowledge. You've got to be persuaded. I am persuaded. Persuaded. Convinced. I'm convinced. People talk about Holy Spirit
conviction. Let me tell you what Holy Spirit conviction is. Holy
Spirit conviction is Holy Spirit convincing. I'm convinced. I'm convinced. People say, well,
the Holy Spirit convicted me not to wear black suits. No,
he didn't. Some religious fellow convicted
you of that. The Holy Spirit convicted me,
I ought not to eat red meat. No, he didn't. Some fool who
didn't like red meat convicted you of that. No. Holy Spirit
conviction is Holy Spirit convincing of sin, of righteousness, and
of judgment. That's all Holy Spirit conviction's
got to do with. Sin, and righteousness, and judgment. There was a time when I knew
the truth. I knew the truth. But I wasn't
persuaded of anything. I wasn't persuaded of anything.
Men taught me the truth, but they couldn't convince me. And
then the Spirit of God convinced me of my sin. Convinced me of
Christ's righteousness. Convinced me of judgment finished.
But that isn't all there is to faith. Many, I fear, are persuaded
of and know gospel truth who know nothing of faith. My bestest
faith is commitment. It is the commitment of my life
and my soul to Jesus Christ, the Lord, a commitment based
upon the revelation of God, of which I am persuaded. I know
who I have believed and I am persuaded that he is able to
keep that which I've committed to him against that day. What have you committed to him?
Everything. Everything. Lock, stock and barrel. Everything. Everything. Oh, may
God give you faith in Jesus Christ the Lord. Amen.