Well, it is so good to be with
you. Turn, if you will, to Matthew chapter 5. Matthew, the fifth
chapter. I am so thankful that your pastor
invited Brother Don Bell to come and join us for the conference.
And you've got to hear him, and we'll get to hear him again,
get to know him. He and I have been friends for
a long, long time. A long time. Faithful, faithful
servant of our God. and capable preacher. Oh, how
I needed what I just heard. Matthew chapter 5. Let me briefly say thank you to all
of you who have been so very kind and thoughtful. Sister Shelby
and I are praying for me, for her, for our congregation, your
cards, your letters. So very, very thankful for you.
for your care for us. But I'm not here to talk about
me or you. Matthew chapter 5. The title
of my message tonight is an altar, an adversary, and an agreement. Get those three words and you've
got the outline and the message. Altar, adversary, agreement. Now most folks, when they read
Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7, what's commonly known as our
Lord's Sermon on the Mount, presume that it is our Lord's Sermon
on Mount Sinai. Nothing could be further from
the truth. Most of the commentators, sadly, even most of those commentators
who ought to know better, interpret Matthew 5, 6, and 7 as though
the Lord Jesus as now taking the law that was given by Moses
and expanding upon it in a higher demands and higher requirements
even than were given in the letter of the law. That is not the case
at all. Our Lord Jesus in this passage
takes the law of God, shows us what God demands of us, and teaches
us where it's found. Now hear me, He shows us what
God demands of us and He teaches us where those demands are found. I didn't say He teaches us how
to perform what God demands. I didn't say He teaches us how
to do what God demands. He teaches us where that which
God demands of man is found. Matthew 5 verse 21. You have heard that it was said
by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill. I believe he's the
one who said it. Thou shalt not kill. And whosoever
shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say unto
you that whosoever is angry with his brother without a call shall
be in danger of the judgment. When I said don't kill, I said
don't even think about it. When I said thou shalt not kill,
I said you ought not be angry. You shall not be angry with your
brother without a cause. Read on. And whosoever shall say to his
brother, raka. Now, unless you have taken the
time to look that up in a dictionary, I'm sure you have no idea what
the word means. It means stupid. You look at your brother and
say, well, you idiot. You senseless man. He shall be in danger of
the council. They might throw you out of church
for that. He shall be in danger of the Sanhedrin. That's what
he's talking about. They might bring you up on charges
for talking to your brother like that. But whosoever shall say, thou
fool. If you could read that Greek
word that's translated fool, spell it out in English letters,
it's the word moron. Moron. The word refers to a reprobate
moron. A godless moron. A hell-deserving
moron. Whosoever shall say, Thou fool,
shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore, therefore, and that
refers to what we just read. If thou bring thy gift to the
altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against
thee. Leave there thy gift before the
altar, and go thy way. First be reconciled to thy brother,
and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly,
whilst thou art in the way with him. lest at any time the adversary
deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the
officer, and the officer takes you and casts you into the prison.
Verse 26, Verily I say unto thee, if that happens, if at last you're
cast into the prison, thou shalt by no means come out thence,
till thou hast paid the utmost farthing. I've been working on
this message all day. I trust God will give me grace
to declare it and give you grace to hear it. An altar, an adversary,
and an agreement. First, let me talk about the
altar. That's the most important part.
Since the fall of our father Adam, God has never allowed any
man to approach Him without an altar and a sacrifice. God has
never allowed any human being since the fall of our father
Adam to approach Him without an altar and without a sacrifice
and a sacrifice involving blood. A lamb or a goat of the goats
or of the sheep, a turtle dove, some kind of sacrifice involving
blood of a clean innocent victim. The Lord God demanded of Adam
that he worship him, but Adam could not come except the Lord
first strip him and slay an animal in his stead and clothe him in
the skins of that animal, making him acceptable ceremonially before
the Lord God. Now, throughout the days of old,
in those earliest days, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob Enoch walking
with God before that, Noah and those who lived prior to Moses
and the giving of the law, wherever they went to worship God, they
built an altar and they offered a sacrifice. And then when God
gave the law by Moses, he established a law for one altar, just one
altar. You can read about it in Exodus
27, we will in a little bit. In that place in Exodus 27, God
told Moses, I've shown you a picture, I've shown you a pattern. And
the pattern was not a drawing or a blueprint as we commonly
think about it. The pattern was Christ the Redeemer.
He revealed himself to Moses back in Exodus chapter 3. And
in the pattern of what Christ would perform as our Redeemer
and Savior, he said, you make this altar. And you build the
altar and establish it in one place. The altar was placed in
the tabernacle. And the children of Israel carried
it for 40 years through the wilderness. They carried that tabernacle
and they carried the altar with them wherever they went all the
days of their wilderness journeys. And then after the kings were
established, David had died and his son Solomon built a temple. Oh, what a temple Solomon built.
Built it in one place. It was in Jerusalem. And he had one altar in the temple. And the only way men and women
could come to God was at that altar and through the blood of
the sacrifices offered on that altar. Do you mean, Brother Don,
people had to go to Jerusalem physically to worship? No, but
they had to in their hearts. And they went up three times
every year for a week to observe a ceremony of feasting unto the
Lord so that they could worship God at Jerusalem. And when they
prayed, they set their faces toward Jerusalem because there
was no other place where God would meet men except by the
blood offered on that altar. Nobody else had an altar. Nobody
else was given the revelation of God. This was an altar specifically
designed by God for a special people. As it was in the typical
legal dispensation, so it is now. There is just one altar
upon which we can come to God. And we must come to God upon
this altar. Turn to Hebrews 13 verse 10.
Hebrews chapter 13. I'm talking now about Christ,
our Redeemer. Hebrews 13, 10. We have an altar. We who believe,
we who are born of God, we who are redeemed by the blood of
Christ, we have an altar. An altar whereof they have no
right to eat. That is, they are not allowed
to eat at our altar. They have no right to come to
this altar. They can't eat the sacrifice offered on this altar.
They can't reap the benefits of this altar. They're not welcome
here. Which serve the tabernacle. What's he talking about? What's
he talking about? The altar of sacrifice in the
tabernacle and in the temple was typical of our Lord Jesus
Christ. the person of Christ, his work,
his merit as our substitute and our redeemer before God. Now
this is what God the Holy Spirit teaches us in Hebrews 10. The
only access sinners have to God and the only acceptance we have
with God is Jesus Christ our altar and he's in heaven. Contrary
to that which is supposed by almost every Baptist in the world. There ain't one at the front
of the church. There's not one. Our altar's
in heaven. We recognize no altar upon the
earth. Now listen carefully. You can
write it down, put quotation marks around it, and say Don
Fortner said it, I'll take the blame. He who has an altar in
heaven needs no altar upon the earth. And he who has an altar
on earth has no altar in heaven. If you've got to have a physical
altar at which to worship God, so I don't have to have it, I
just prefer to have it, that means you've got to have it.
If you've got to have a physical altar with which you worship
God, you do not have an altar before God in heaven. You do
not yet know Christ. You do not yet trust Him. The
Holy Spirit tells us plainly, we have an altar whereof they
have no right to eat, who have an altar on this earth, who serve
the tabernacle. We cannot approach God without
a mediator, without an altar, without a sacrifice. We're all
guilty men and women. And our best, our holiest acts
and deeds are but sinful deeds of sinful men and women. Our
purest efforts at worship is but the worship of depraved hearts
with depraved minds. Who can bring a clean thing out
of an unclean? Go ahead and bring something
to God. Bring it. I give my money, my soul. God
calls that filthy lucre. And that's clean compared to
what comes out of your heart. Who's going to bring something
clean to God? Come on, if you've got something clean, bring it!
What are you going to present to God? I was talking to a stewardess
coming down here yesterday. Trying to talk to her. She wouldn't
shut up long enough to listen. She's nice enough, but she just...
Good. I felt like the thing God requires
is that we just do the best we can and treat everybody the best
we can, not hurt anybody. I said, God Almighty demands
perfection. Well, he's not going to get that
from me. I said, no, honey, he won't. Well, he's sure not going
to get it from anybody I know. I said, I know, but I know somebody
will get it from. Who can bring a clean thing out
of an unclean? Not you, not me. before we can ever come to God
and be accepted with Him, before we can bring an acceptable offering
to God, be it a gift out of our pockets, a gift out of our time,
a gift out of our lips of praise and thanksgiving, or be it a
gift from our hearts, before we can bring anything to God,
we've got to have a sacrifice accepted on His altar, and we
can only come by that sacrifice and that altar. There's no door
of acceptance for us except through the merit of Christ our surety
who laid down his life for us. There's just one, one way by
which we who are washed in the blood of Christ can offer to
God our prayers, our gifts, our praises, our services, and that
way is Jesus Christ the Lord our altar. Let me say it again,
there's just one altar still. And it is the altar that sanctifies
the gift, not the gift that sanctifies the altar. That means God Almighty
accepts Don Bell and Don Faulkner because of the altar. And He
accepts the praise we give Him here in this place tonight because
of the altar. It's the altar of Christ Jesus
that sanctifies the gift. in this gospel day, all physical,
carnal, ceremonial, religious altars are instruments of idolatry,
not of worship. Use anything as an altar for
acceptance with God, a way by which you draw near to God, a
way by which you are in a spiritual frame. Well, I don't really mean anything
about having Jesus on a stick around my neck, you know, but
just when I rub that thing it makes me feel spiritual. I feel
closer to God now. I feel closer to God when I have
that stained glass hanging there and I can look at it and see
that pretty picture of that effeminate fellow they call Jesus. I don't
have to have it, I just feel closer to God. sheer idolatry. That's all. There are many things
folks think is an altar. Some folks think that the cross
on which our Savior died is an altar. And they have crosses. You see them in airports. You
don't see them much in airports, but once in a while you do. Right
beside that place they've got Muslim mats, and they have a... that indicates that this is a
place to worship. It's an altar. We don't have crosses in our
church buildings. We don't wear crosses around
our necks. We don't put crosses on our lapel
pins. It's not because we can't afford
a dime store cross. It's because we worship God in
spirit. But brother Don, I've got a cross my mama gave me.
Throw it away or melt it down if it's worth anything. Just
melt it down. But just because your mama's
an idolater doesn't mean you ought to be. It's right, isn't it, Pastor?
It's exactly right. And you all know it's right.
You know it's right. It's just religious nonsense. Sometimes people talk about man's
heart. It's an altar. This is our altar. Give your heart to Jesus. What
do you think he wants with that filthy thing? Man's heart's an
altar. as you know, just had some work
done on my heart. I've now got part of a pig's heart in me.
What are we going to do with that? No. No, the heart of man is the
seat of devotion, the seat of worship. And I realize sometimes
folks speak things contrary to what they really mean. They go,
the heart, God demands and requires sincerity. Honesty, uprightness,
truth in the heart. Oh, he does that. But the heart's
not an altar by which we draw near to him. Sometimes people
have family altar. Dr. Carriage used to, down in
Texas, used to, that's Lester Roloff, not Milton Howard. He used to have family altar
radio program. Talk about family altar. Now
worship God in your home. Worship God, husbands and wives
together. Worship God with your children,
but don't erect or establish some place that's set aside as
a holy place where you're going to worship God. This is the family
altar. In many churches, they think the Lord's table. This
down here is an altar. I remember when our daughter
got married, our church building wasn't large enough to accommodate
the guests. Something over 500 people there.
And so we rented the first Christian church in Danville and Those
folks make good money of that stuff. We'd pay $1,000 rent that
thing for three hours $1,000 on place in town where you rent
big enough and we've started to put the cake out in a room,
but we were using for Part is it the reception? And it was
on the one table in there suitable. It was up in a platform kind
of like this and set the cake. Then the janitors came and said,
oh, you can't do that. That's their altar. I said, I'm
glad you told me. Let's put the cake right here. And if you want me to step outside
and see what I'd like to do with that altar. That's their altar. No. No, no, no, no. And the most
abominable of all is the notion that somehow If you get up from
your seat where you are and walk down here in front of this church,
you'll find an altar here. Nobody has ever been saved coming
to an altar in a Baptist church. Not Jim Nunes and not Don Fortner.
Nobody. Well, I know lots of people who
were. No, you don't. No, you don't. Well, that's what
I experienced. I don't know what you experienced,
but it wasn't God's salvation. Not coming to an altar in front
of a church building. No, sir. No, sir. Salvation comes,
as our brother just said so plainly, with the movement of your heart
to God's altar in glory, right where you are. Not the movement
of your feet. Not the movement of your hands.
The movement of your heart to God. Come to Him. I had my wife with me this week. A lot of times I travel without
her, as you know. And when I travel without her,
man, I go to her all the time. You've been going to Mary a lot
this week, haven't you? And you've been right here on the left coast
all the time. All the time, haven't you? Go
to her. How? If you need somebody to
tell you, it's because you've got nobody to go to. That's exactly right. Go with
your heart to God. With the heart man believes with
reference to righteousness. My son, give me your heart. Come to God in your spirit with
your heart. Turn to Exodus chapter 20. Let
me show you the picture of this altar. Even in the giving of the law,
the Lord God shows us His grace. Here in Exodus 20, God has just
given the law by His servant Moses. In verse 23, it says,
Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make
unto you gods of gold. An altar of earth thou shalt
make unto me. Oh man, that's not a very pretty
altar. That's the reason for it. And shall sacrifice thereon thy
burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, thine oxen,
in all places where I record my name, I will come unto thee,
and I will bless thee on an altar of earth. Just scratch together
a pile of dirt, that'll do fine. That'll do fine. Verse 25. And
if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, okay, you want a hard
altar, something more substantial. Just pull one off the ground.
Just dig one up out of the ground. Take one off the side of the
mountain. Thou shalt not build it of hewn
stone. For if thou lift up thy tool
upon it, thou hast polluted it. You put your hand to the work. It doesn't matter where you put
it, how you put it, what excuse you give for putting it. You
put your tool on this altar. Just had a rough spot right here.
Just needed to knock that one little spot off. You polluted
the whole thing. It just needed a little touch
here. Look like there's a little chip of paint missing there.
Just touch that up a little bit. Make it look prettier. You polluted
the whole thing. The whole thing. Read on. Neither
shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness
be not discovered thereof. Don't you build me an altar and
put your tool on it, and when you set an altar out in the middle
of the field, an altar of stone, don't gather up smaller stones
to make steps to go up to the altar. Because if you ascend
to the altar by steps, as you lift your foot from one degree
to another, until at last you've reached the place of acceptance
with God on the altar, you have exposed your nakedness. You've exposed your sin. All
your works of righteousness are just the exposing of your nakedness. Just the exposing of your sin. That's all. That's all. Well, how are we going to get
up this altar? Not by degrees. Not by stamps. To do otherwise is to make gods
of silver and gods of gold before the Lord. Christ is our altar. He's our altar of stone. He's
the altar of God's making. And he's an altar with no stairs
for men to climb. All forms of carnal worship,
all those physical things that men call holy things, all attempts
to place any merit of my own before God is nothing on this
earth except idolatry. Turn to Philippians chapter 3. Our Lord told the Samaritan woman,
God is spirit. They that worship Him must worship
Him in spirit and in truth. Philippians chapter 3. We are
the circumcision. That is we truly are God's people.
We are the people God has accepted. The circumcision being the sign
of the covenant of acceptance. We are circumcised in the heart
by God the Holy Spirit. We've been born of God, who worship
God in the Spirit. We worship God in the Spirit.
In the Spirit. In the Spirit. It's nice to have
a building like this. Comfortable air conditioning.
I've preached a lot of times in open fields. I've preached
in barns. I preach a lot in people's houses.
I preach in community centers. Wherever God's pleased to gather
some folks, I go preach to them. And we worship God. We worship
God in the Spirit. In the Spirit. And when we come
into this place, we worship God in the Spirit. This is not a
sanctuary. It's just a church building. That sacred desk. My soul is
nothing sacred about this thing. It's just a piece of wood. It's
just stained oak. It isn't even real oak. I'm looking
proud, I believe. There's nothing holy about it. Nothing holy about it. Devoted
to a holy purpose. Dedicated to a holy cause. Used
for holy purposes. But nothing holy about it. We
worship God in the Spirit. That means we rejoice and we
trust in Christ Jesus and we have no confidence in the flesh. No confidence in what we do.
Well, Brother Don, what ought we to do with all of our crosses
and pictures of Jesus and pictures of angels and little angels on
our charm bracelets? images, and icons, and religious
relics, and symbols, and signs, and everything else that symbolizes
religion. Burn it. Burn it. Burn it all. Turn over to 2 Kings. Let me show you something. 2
Kings. Do you know what the children
of Israel did with that serpent of brass that God commanded Moses
to make in the wilderness. And Moses was in on it. He had
to have been in on it. Aaron was in cooperation with
it. They had to have been. They knew
what was going on. They kept it. Now Aaron, those golden calves,
We're gonna throw those things out in the water, y'all drink
that mess. But we'll have this, this is something else. We're
not gonna worship this, we're gonna hang on to it. Oh, it was
such a memorial thing. It meant so much to everybody.
It just meant so much to us. And we're gonna hang on to it
as a symbol of God's grace. As a symbol of God's salvation.
as a symbol of God's goodness, as a symbol, a reminder of God's
glory. And they held on to it, and held
on to it, and held on to it. They held on to it during all
the days of the judges. They held on to it all the while
Saul was king in Israel. And they held on to it while
David, the man after God's own heart, was king in Israel. And
they held on to it while Solomon, the king of peace, was king in
Israel. They held on to it all the way
down to the day that Hezekiah began to reign. And Hezekiah,
2 Kings 18, 4, removed the high places and break the images and
cut down the groves Now listen to this, this is where Hezekiah
put that serpent of brass with the images and the groves on
which they worshiped Baal. I mean, he put it right there
with him. And break in pieces the serpent of brass that Moses
had made for unto those days the children of Israel who was
just keeping this thing as a memorial. Oh, man, we just can't throw
that away. My great-great-granddaddy was
out there in the wilderness. He looked on that serpent of brass.
I've been told that all my life. We just can't throw that away.
And after a while, they set her up and burned the incense to
it. And he called it nihushtan, a
piece of worthless brass. Christ our altar fulfills everything
symbolized and portrayed in the Old Testament altar of sacrifice.
Look in Exodus chapter 27 for just a minute. Thou shalt make an altar of shit
and wood, just common worthless wood. That's a picture of our Lord's
humanity. A real man just like us. Five cubits
long, five cubits broad, the altar shall be four square. Perfect symmetry. And the height
thereof shall be three cubits. And thou shalt make the horns
of it upon the four corners thereof. An altar with power reaching
into the four corners of the earth. His horns shall be of
the same. Isn't that amazing? God, by deliberate word of inspiration,
refers to this physical altar and says His horns. His horns. His horns shall be of the same
and thou shalt overlay it with brass, speaking of our Lord's
glorious eternal deity. The altar was the same for all
the people. Men came to the altar bringing
their sacrifices. That's Christ Jesus the Lord.
He's the only altar by whom we bring our sacrifices to God.
We try to pray And we pray in Jesus' name. We gather here to
worship Him and we worship in His name. We offer our sacrifices
of praise and thanksgiving in His name. We don't dare even
think about coming to God any other way. Just in His name. His name. Christ, our altar. is the one altar of all his people
scattered through all the earth. And that altar, that altar of
shit and wood overlaid with brass bore all the heat of God's wrath
figuratively. There the sacrifice was burned
until it was consumed to ashes. And Christ, our altar, bore all
the furious heat of God's holy wrath as our substitute. Only
this is a sacrifice that the fire never consumed. But rather this sacrifice consumed
the fire of God's wrath. And the Lord God declares, fury
is not in me. The altar was a place of refuge
and hope for guilty men. Solomon's brother Adonijah fled
to the altar. Joab the deceiver fled to the
altar and laid hold on the horns of the altar and said, if I die,
let Solomon kill me right here. Oh, I can't think of a better
way for sinners to throw themselves upon the feet of God's sovereign
mercy, except to lay hold of Christ Jesus and cry, if I perish,
I will pray and perish only here. And I'm telling you now, though
Joab was slain holding on to the horns of the altar, and though
Adonijah was slain holding on to the horns of the altar, there's
never been a sinner slain by God holding on to Christ. If I die with mercy sought when
I, the King, have tried, this were to die delightful thought,
as sinner never died." These four altars, speaking of the
glorious efficacy of our Lord's sacrifice to His elect in all
the four corners of the earth, a sacrifice that meets the needs
of men universally around the world. His grace, His promises,
His merits, His sweet commands in the Gospel. He says, I, even
I am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake,
and will not remember thy sins. And I love this. Put me in remembrance. Put me in remembrance. You grab hold of one of those
horns. God's promise, God's command in the gospel, come unto me.
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Grab hold of God's covenant.
Grab hold of the merit of God's Son and put God in remembrance. Plead with me. Let us plead together. Declare thou that thou mayest
be justified. And the Old Testament was the
preeminent thing. When a worshiper came into the
tabernacle or the temple, came up to worship God, first thing
they saw, Brother Gene, was that huge brazen altar. First thing
to catch their eyes. Very first thing. And when they
walked out of the tabernacle or the temple, the last thing
they saw going out the door was that same altar. That altar. That altar stood in the place
of preeminence, before the vision of all, for all to see, as if
to declare, this is what God looks on all the time. This is
what you need all the time. This is all your salvation, all
your strength, all your hope. Come to the altar! Come to the
altar. Come to the altar and live forever. This altar was an altar that
men could not ascend, as I said earlier, by steps or stairs. When the priest came up and approached
the altar, he walked up a ramp. with his robes on. And as he walked up that ramp
with his robes on, you hear preachers talk about he's in the holy of
holies and they know he's still alive because the bell and pomegranate
are ringing. No, he didn't have those things
on when he was in there. He had on white linen breeches in there.
But out here at this altar, out here in the public, he's going
up this ramp. And out here the bell's ringing. With a sacrifice. A sacrifice
that God himself declares acceptable. Acceptable for all Israel! This one sacrifice. And that
priest goes up that ramp to the altar. The place of acceptance. And God Almighty shows ceremonially
that he sees no nakedness in him. His robe reaches right down to
the ground. And here he comes with no shame
and nothing to be ashamed of before God Almighty. How come? Because his faith is in Him who's
represented in the sacrifice he's carrying up to the altar.
That's it. Christ is our altar, the only
altar of acceptance with God. The fire burning on the altar,
portrayal of God's everlasting love for sinners in Christ Jesus. But how can I come to this altar? Turn back to our text, Matthew
chapter 5. Christ is the altar. The only
altar there is. The only way to God. Christ is
our saving, sin-atoning altar. But there's an adversary spoken
of here. An adversary who must be dealt with if I'm to come
to God upon this altar. Verse 23, therefore, this refers back to verse 20,
except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes
and Pharisees. And it refers back to verse 21
and verse 22, talking about our guilt and our sin. In the light of these things,
in light of the fact that God demands perfect righteousness,
and you're nothing but guilt and sin. Because you have been
angry with your brother without a cause. And you have called your brother
an idiot. You called your brother a senseless
man. Therefore, Therefore, thou bring
thy gift to the altar, and rememberest there that thy brother hath ought
against thee. Leave there thy gift before the
altar, and go thy way, and first be reconciled to thy brother,
and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly,
whilst thou art in the way. lest at any time the adversary
deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the
officer, and thou be cast into the prison. Verily I say unto
thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast
paid the utmost farthing." As I told you before, the word
fool here, call a man a fool. say to your
brother, thou fool." It's the word from which we get our word
moron. Now, fool is used many, many times in Scripture. But
this particular word is only used one other time. Only find
it one other time. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter
3, I'll show you. The Holy Spirit He's here telling
us that Christ is the only foundation God has laid. He's the foundation
upon which we build and the foundation upon which we're built. And then
in verse 18 we read, Let no man deceive himself. If any man among
you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool,
that he may be wise. That's the only other time in
this book that word fool is used. A reprobate moron. A godless
moron. A man totally ignorant and full
of sin. One fully deserving the wrath
of God forever. Leave your gift at the altar
and go be reconciled to your brother. Lots of folks have found this
passage of scripture very troubling. You can't come to the Lord's
table unless you are in complete, sweet fellowship
with your brethren. If anybody got anything against
you, actually, usually they put it this way, if you got ought
against somebody, you can't come. You can't worship God if you've
got alt against your brother. And it is true. God's grace teaches folks to
be gracious and God's people love one another. And our brethren
seek one another's good and we seek the good of our brethren.
Those things are true of God's people. But that's not what this
passage is talking about. He's talking about your brother
having aught against you. You come to the altar and you
remember that your brother, he's got something against you. And
you know it's right. You know in your heart, he's
got reason to be angry with you. You know in your heart, he's
got reason to be after you. to be looking for an opportunity
to have you arrested and thrown into the prison. You see, the offended brother
here is none other than Christ our God and Savior. Our unbelief is despising Him
and calling Him a worthless fool. Is that what the book says? 1
Corinthians chapter 1. The preaching of the gospel is
to them that perish foolishness, just foolishness. He that believeth not the Son
of God hath made him a liar. There is no coming to God until
we're reconciled to Him in Christ and by Christ. Until we're reconciled
to Christ as our only God and Savior, our only atonement for
sin, our only righteousness, our only redemption. And once
we come to Him, and we're going to the brother
and We're reconciled to God in His
Son. He accepts us. I don't mean that our coming
to Him is the cause of Him accepting us. You know better than that.
We were accepted before we ever thought about coming. Accepted
in the beloved. But in our consciences, He was
an adversary. He was an adversary. I'll tell
you how you will meet Christ first. You'll meet Him first
as your adversary. In Holy Spirit conviction with
a sword drawn as if to destroy you. An adversary. The brother here who's offended
is not your brother in Christ. That can't be for these reasons.
Number one, Your brother doesn't have aught against you. He just doesn't. He just doesn't. God's people forgive one another
for Christ's sake. He doesn't have aught against
you. If we're brethren, we can't be divided. We can't be. Not
if we're brethren. We're one in Christ. Secondly,
if somebody's got aught against you, there's nothing you can
do about it. Give it a shot. It's kind of like stirring manure
in a barnyard. It just stinks worse the more you try to stir
it. Try it. Well, Brother Don, I
heard that Brother Gene, he's upset with you. And Don goes
over to Brother Gene. Brother Gene, I hear you're upset
with me. Yes, sir, and let me tell you why. Or, no, I'm not upset
with you, but you better watch your back because I'm going to
get you. That's just the way human nature is. That's just
the way it is. You're not going to get your
brother who has aught against you to change his mind. He may pretend it. He may fake
it. He may try it for a while. Tell you what I've observed.
These other preachers may have seen something different. You
may have. I've been at this thing for a while. I've seen churches
split. I've seen folks divide over this
thing, that. And some get reconciled. Patch
things up. Six months or six years later,
have another problem come up. Do you know where the dividing
line is? Right back where it was to start with. It's just there seething like
a boil waiting to erupt. You're not going to change somebody
being angry with you. You need them to try. You need them to
try. This adversary and this brother
are Christ Jesus the Lord. Now look what he says. Verse
25, Agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou art in the
way. Agree with your adversary while
you still got breath in your lungs, lest at any time the adversary
deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the
officer, and you're cast into hell, and you can't get out. Oh God help you. Make agreement with your adversary. In Holy Spirit conviction, that's
what God does for sinners. He causes them to agree with
Christ. To agree with God. To agree with
God's revelation of Himself in His Son. To agree with every
charge God makes against them, the sinner takes his place as a fool. A reprobate, worthless, godless
moron. And just as soon as he does,
he's made wise. For Christ is made of God and
to us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
What do you mean, Brother Dodd? God declares I'm nothing but
sin. I take my place there. Nothing
but sin. God declares salvation is all
together by his free grace. I agree. God declares this grace comes
to sinners only through the blood and righteousness mediation of
his darling son. That's it. That's it. Lord, I say these things that
you may be justified when you judge. Justified if you cast
me into hell and justified if you judge me righteous in your
son. God is just and I deserve His
wrath. Now, come to the altar. A man left home when he was a
boy and stayed gone a long time. He got to realizing what a mess
he had made of things and wrote to his mom. And told his mom,
said, Mom, tomorrow afternoon, pay for the date. He said, the
day after you get this letter, tomorrow afternoon, three o'clock
train comes by, and I'm going to be on that train. And if it's
all right for me to get off, you just put one of Daddy's white
handkerchiefs out on the clothesline, and I'll jump off the boxcar.
And if not, I understand, because I don't deserve to be called
your son." And he got on the train. He hopped that train up
close to the house, and he's looking out the boxcar door. He rounds the bend, and he didn't
see his daddy's white handkerchief. That clothesline was full of
bed sheets, and handkerchiefs, and slips, and pillowcases, everything
white she had in the house. She'd hung it up, and her mother
would stand there on the front porch like this. Oh, that's God's Son in the Gospel.
Come to the altar and live forever. Amen. Aren't you thinking, like his
son, irresistible, drawing power to you, to God, to the world?